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Tom Tykwer uses AI to turn a handful of actors into a school full of students
With Bonn Park and Sarika Hemi Lakhani, the Run Lola Run director is transforming live performances into the larger world of Volcano High using Seedance 2.5.
Reporting updated Oct 26, 2026
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Tom Tykwer uses AI to turn a handful of actors into a school full of studentsView original post on X ↗
THE TAKEAWAY
Fewer than ten actors. A school filled with hundreds of students. One continuous camera move. That is the production challenge behind Volcano High, a collaboration between filmmaker Tom Tykwer, playwright and director Bonn Park, and producer Sarika Hemi Lakhani. The team is adapting Park's stage work for the screen by combining actual filmed performances with AI-generated environments and characters.
WHAT HAPPENED
BytePlus introduced the project on October 23 with a one-minute trailer showing how the filmmakers expanded their limited physical cast into a larger school environment.
The work uses Dreamina Seedance 2.5, with AI production contributions from Chapter 41 and X Filme Creative Pool.
Lars Stark, Chapter 41's co-founder and AI FX designer, has described the wider production as a 12-minute one-shot project based on live-action footage filmed in July.
The public one-minute trailer is a preview of that work, not verification that the entire longer film has been released.
The exciting decision is to retain real acting and camera movement as the foundation.
Instead of generating a school and its inhabitants entirely from scratch, the filmmakers use AI to transform the space around the performers.
WHY IT MATTERS
Crowd scenes are expensive. So are elaborate environments, background performers, costumes and the logistics of shooting them.
A workflow that begins with real performers and expands the world around them could change what a modest physical production can attempt.
But the real challenge is continuity.
The generated students must belong to the same space as the actors. The camera has to travel through that world without revealing where the original performance ends and the generated scene begins.
FOUR PARTS OF THE WORKFLOW
Stage foundation
Bonn Park's existing work provides the dramatic material.
Live performances
A small cast supplies real acting, movement and blocking.
AI transformation
Seedance 2.5 helps turn the photographed environment into a larger fictional school.
Continuous direction
The filmmakers aim to keep the changing environment coherent through an uninterrupted camera journey.
The actors remain real. The world around them becomes something the physical shoot never contained.
VEYR ANGLE
Volcano High is a particularly interesting AI filmmaking experiment because the human performances are not incidental.
They are the foundation of the project.
AI becomes another tool for production design and visual transformation, while the director still needs to make every moment work as cinema.
