How Eliza McNitt and AI connected the intimate with the infinite

How did the concept for ANCESTRA evolve, and at what stage did you become involved in shaping its creative direction?

The day I was born, I nearly died. ANCESTRA is that story. It’s about my mother’s courage and the often perilous experience of bringing life into the world.

The idea took shape during the start of our collaboration with Primordial Soup and Google DeepMind’s generative AI model, Veo. While exploring birth and the cosmos with [Chromista co-founder] Darren Aronofsky, I remembered I was born with a hole in my heart. That became the spark. It gave me a personal entry into a story that ties the most intimate human experience to the vastness of the universe.

As writer and director, I shaped the film from the beginning, working closely with the Google Creative Lab alongside artists like Ben Wiley and John Soat. That collaborative environment allowed ANCESTRA to evolve through constant experimentation, pushing the technology to meet the demands of the story.

“Childbirth reflects the same cycles of creation and destruction that shape the universe.”

The film was rooted in a simple idea: the rhythms of the cosmos mirror the rhythms of our bodies. The same pulse that began with the Big Bang still moves through stars, cells, mothers, and children. I wanted to explore how a single heartbeat can echo the beginning of time — how childbirth reflects the same cycles of creation and destruction that shape the universe.

Can you walk us through the creative process of working with AI as a director? What techniques or approaches did you develop along the way?

Working with AI opened a new creative frontier. It wasn’t about controlling every frame — it was about shaping a world.

“Instead of traditional direction, we wrote prompts like poetry — fragments of emotion, rhythm, and metaphor.”

Early versions of Veo limited us to eight-second clips, which made continuity difficult. Outer space visuals felt overly literal, lacking the poetry I was searching for. These limitations, however, became opportunities to push our creative approach.

Instead of traditional direction, we wrote prompts like poetry — fragments of emotion, rhythm, and metaphor. Some of the most powerful moments in the film, like witnessing the hole in the heart from inside the womb, came from those experiments.

I developed a visual language with the model: training it to understand texture, movement, and tone. But I also embraced surprise. Sometimes it took 200–1,000 generations to get one beautiful, usable image.

My role was to guide emotional cohesion — curating rhythm and atmosphere so the film felt unified, even when the process was unpredictable.

You collaborated with over 200 artists and technologists to train the Veo model, so clearly this wasn’t a simpler alternative to live-action or VFX. What was it about using AI that felt important for this project?

AI was essential because ANCESTRA demanded visuals that couldn’t be captured traditionally — the inside of the womb, the edges of the cosmos. The film moves between the intimate and the infinite, and AI allowed us to explore both realms with emotional resonance.

“[My late father’s] aesthetic became part of the film’s DNA. It felt like collaborating with him across time.”

The newborn in the film is actually me. We used archival photos my father took moments after I was born and blended them with AI imagery. VFX Supervisor Aaron Raff helped us integrate those real images seamlessly, creating a world that felt grounded yet otherworldly.

That moment was surreal — seeing myself as a newborn through this process. It rooted the cosmic in something deeply personal.

You’ve spoken about drawing from your own birth experience and using personal archival footage to train the model. How did it feel to bring such an intimate story to life through AI?

Bringing this story to life helped me reconnect with my parents in different ways. My late father, an aerial marine photographer, left behind images of sea and sky. We used his photographs to fine-tune a LoRA. His aesthetic became part of the film’s DNA. It felt like collaborating with him across time.

“I worked closely with John Soat on using color as emotion — deep reds for the womb, cool blues for distance, warm golds for life.”

With my mom, we had emotional conversations about the day I was born. We recorded her heartbeat and wove it into the film. It became a story about honouring where I came from — the invisible threads that connect generations.

The transitions between AI animation and live-action footage feel incredibly seamless. How did you establish a unified visual language across such different mediums?

We were deeply intentional from the start. Working with Darren, Ari, Dylan Golden, Justin Gonçalves, and Ben Wiley, we built a narrative that could move fluidly between mediums.

I worked closely with John Soat on using colour as emotion — deep reds for the womb, cool blues for distance, warm golds for life. That palette guided the emotional arc. Colourist Joseph Bicknell brought everything together in the final grade.

“Music and sound design were key… We created a sonic landscape that included my mom’s heartbeat and my own baby voice.”

Cinematographer Minka Farthing-Kohl echoed those emotional beats in the live-action shoot. VFX Supervisor Aaron Raff bridged the two mediums with seamless transitions — matching grain, movement, and tone.

Music and sound design were key. With Caroline Shaw, Danny Lee Parpan Ringdown, and Q Department, we created a sonic landscape that included my mom’s heartbeat and my own baby voice. Editor Eric Harnden shaped the emotional rhythm, weaving the film into a continuous world.