A Renowned Actor in Dialogue with an AI Character
In the fifth episode of The Fyrtel Chronicles, we combined Michał Grudziński’s performance with Wena — the series’ digital protagonist — to create a dialogue scene built from live-action footage and AI-generated imagery.
Wena, an American reporter with Polish roots, wants to make a chronicle episode about Gniezno, but two men from Poznań stand in her way. One challenges the myth of Poland’s first capital; the other — a renowned actor — refuses to perform with AI. For the film to be made, Wena has to win both disputes.
The dialogue between Michał Grudziński and Wena concerns changes taking place in the film industry and the role of artificial intelligence in art. The fictional conflict therefore becomes a conversation about the real transformation of the acting profession and the creative process as a whole.
We also created a visual biography of Michał Grudziński based on selected episodes from his life and career. Using AI, we portrayed the actor in his youth — including as a commando during a parachute jump and as an actor on the stage of Poznań’s Teatr Nowy in the 1970s. The sequence grounds the discussion of new technologies in the artist’s specific biography and body of work.
We filmed Michał Grudziński’s scenes with a camera, while Wena was created using AI. In the edit, we combined live-action footage with generated shots, preserving the rhythm and continuity of a dialogue between a live actor and a digital character.
The actor’s interpretation also brought emotion to the animated statues of kings in Gniezno, which lead the story to the film’s conclusion.
For the generated sequences, we used Kling 4K Native for the first time — an absolute novelty at the time. According to the developer, Kling 3.0 was the world’s first model to generate video natively in 4K. The 3840 × 2160 image allowed us to combine generated shots with camera footage more smoothly, without visible differences in image quality.
We also used Kling VIDEO 3.0 Omni — a model designed to work with reference materials and maintain character consistency. We used it to preserve the recognisable appearance of the digital characters across consecutive shots.
The project demonstrates that AI filmmaking can combine live actors with digital characters while keeping the actor’s emotion at the centre of the scene.
The film was made as the fifth episode of The Fyrtel Chronicles — an original series combining documentary, fiction and modern technology. Müllermilch is the episode partner.