The Thorne Protocol builds a sci-fi trailer in 19 days with real actors and AI

The Thorne Protocol combined real actors with AI-generated worlds to create a science-fiction trailer in just 19 days. The production explored roughly 500,000 generated frames, using 3,552 in the finished cut, before taking third place in two international competition categories.

The project placed third in the Future Vision XPRIZE and separately in the SPECS Audience Choice Award. Its results were presented at Moonshots LIVE in Los Angeles on September 25, with the production announcement following on October 2.

Human performances remained at the centre of the trailer. The actors were filmed against a grey screen, with artificial intelligence used to generate the environments around them, and none of the character performances was synthetic.

How the trailer was made

The production included a single day of filming at an Atlanta studio and five days of post-production, the stage when footage is edited and visual effects are assembled. That work formed part of the overall 19-day schedule.

An AI agent, software that can carry out and coordinate tasks across a workflow, assisted throughout the production. Its work included visual planning, lists of required shots and coordination, while people retained responsibility for creative decisions.

The frame count shows the scale of the material explored along the way. Frames are the individual images that make up moving footage, and the approximately 500,000 generated during development were narrowed down to the 3,552 used in the final trailer.

Those figures describe the process behind a trailer, rather than the completion of a feature film. The 19-day turnaround should therefore be understood as the production schedule for this particular piece of work.

Watch the official trailer:

What The Thorne Protocol is about

Set in 2036, the story follows a teenager trying to open an enigmatic black cube bequeathed by a billionaire. His attempt involves reconstructing it through a pattern found in a dragonfly’s wing.

Owen Correll plays Adam, alongside Josh Henry as Elias Thorne. Sean Brown directed the project, with Jonathan Hayes leading AI direction and Scott Downes and J. Ryan Williams serving as executive producers.

The project reached the final five from more than 2,500 submissions. The separate audience award was decided through public voting across 65 official selections, giving the trailer recognition from both the main competition and its viewers.