I Forget How to Breathe” is a cinematic AI-assisted animated short produced by Luke & California, demonstrating how a written idea can become a fully realized visual universe through modern AI video production.

Built from an original spoken-word poem, the project combines concept development, cinematic visual direction, recurring character design, surreal world-building, AI-generated imagery, image-to-video animation, music-driven editing, subtitles, and final post-production.

Rather than using a conventional animation pipeline — with large art teams, extensive asset creation, complex rigging, and long production cycles — Luke & California used AI-assisted tools to build and animate a sequence of emotionally connected cinematic scenes, from Alpha Centauri and distant galaxies to wild islands, underwater worlds, city rain, and open skies.

The result is a finished animated short that functions both as an intimate poetic film and as a production case study: a demonstration of how AI video can help brands, artists, and storytellers create visually rich, emotionally resonant content with greater flexibility, speed, and creative range.