gem 🍉

Here's my 30-second spec ad for WinRAR (that nobody asked for). Okay, perhaps Rourke Heath did. He shared this fun brief with his GenHQ community last week, and I took it on. In this experimental project, I wanted to turn one of the internet's longest-running jokes into a subtle family drama about WinRAR's 40-day trial that somehow lasted almost three decades. Here's how I made it: After writing the script (the old school way), I worked with ChatGPT 5.6 Sol Max to turn it into a 14,000-character prompt for Seedance 2.5 (yes, Dreamina allows prompts that long). I used GPT Image 2 to create the reference image for WinRAR's trial screen, while Seed Audio 1.0 generated the audio reference for the full voiceover and dialogue. After 20+ Seedance 2.5 tests at 480p, with the prompt evolving throughout, I generated the final versions at 720p. I then lightly edited the video and upscaled it to 1080p with Topaz Labs Astra Starlight Precision 2.6. However, the screenshot text didn't survive the upscale (I should have used Astra's scene detection feature and selected a different model for that particular shot), so I recreated it using Seedance 2.0 at 1080p. (I also tried Hailuo H3 and Kling 3.0, but in this particular case, Seedance 2.0 gave me the best overall result in one go.) For the sound, I selected a solo-instrument soundtrack from Epidemic Sound and added extra sound effects to improve the overall sound design. And here's the result. I'm curious to hear what you think. Did this bring back memories, or is this genuinely your first time hearing about WinRAR? I’d love to know.