THE MAID is an animated Gothic short film told entirely through stained glass - a forgotten chronicle of a peasant girl who could see what hid among the crowns of Europe, and the fire they used to silence her. A story of belief, war, heresy, and one heart the flames refused to take. Based on the trial records of 1431.

In the years before the Black Death swept across Europe, villagers in a remote French town claimed to see winged figures watching from rooftops and church towers. Dismissed as superstition, the sightings faded into memory—until plague arrived and half the town perished. Decades later, the last surviving witness tells his story to a young monk, revealing a forgotten chapter of folklore hidden in the shadow of history. A short atmospheric horror film about memory, fear, and the legends we create to remember what we cannot explain.

Before violence became history... it was a story. INHERITANCE is a cinematic exploration of the myths behind history, examining how the origin of violence echoes across generations and became woven into humanity's collective memory. Written and directed by Jan-Willem Blom Produced by Videostate In association with GRAiL Presented on ESCAPE Theological consultation: Regardt Krüger Submission for the Reply AI filmfestival Venice 2026 Created using a combination of AI filmmaking tools including image generation, voice performance, sound design, editing, color grading, and visual effects.

FARMAGEDDON™ is a live-action AI-generated action-comedy series set at Happy Hooves Farm, a real children's petting farm inside a suburban park. When a lightning storm strikes the farm generator, every creature on the property transforms simultaneously - gaining consciousness, cybernetic armor, and a very specific agenda. Led by Cowmander Mooi, 27 named and ranked soldiers organize into a military force and take the farm. Then the road. Then the supermarket. Then the world. FARMAGEDDON is absurd in concept and dead serious in execution. The comedy lives entirely in the contrast between what is happening and how seriously everyone is taking it. Built using Runway Gen4, Runway 4.5, Seedance 2.0 and Kling 3, the video demonstrates large-scale AI worldbuilding across a complete series arc — four seasons, one expanding universe, one unstoppable army. I am interested in stories about control. Who has it. Who decides they shouldn't. What happens in the moment between endurance and action. That moment - the lightning strike, the surge through the wet ground, the eyes opening - is the whole film. Everything before it is setup. Everything after is consequence. The animals in FARMAGEDDON don't revolt because they are angry. They revolt because they are organized. That distinction is everything. Anger is chaos. Organization is a western. Sometimes the most human stories aren't human at all.

Logline: A 17th-century alchemist, driven to understand reality, pushes his experiments too far—unleashing something that was never meant to be known. Synopsis: In the late 17th century, a reclusive alchemist named Edmund set out to solve the one force no man could command: time. Working in secrecy, he constructed a device capable of observing it… containing it… perhaps even bending it. Among the few aware of his work was Sir Isaac Newton, not as the father of physics, but as a man deeply entangled in alchemy, searching for the same hidden order beneath reality. What Edmund discovered was not a breakthrough. It was a breach. And something responded.

Things often stop working faster than they should. Lights go out. Signals drop. Control slips away. And suddenly…everything becomes a problem. Until one small component brings it back. Life. Across the moments that matter, from chaos to control, life keeps everything moving. Real power isn’t about intensity. It’s about reliability. LIFEFORCE.

🏑 Sunday Matchday. 🎥 Microfilm: FIELDS OF FURY - inspired by true events. This one doesn't come from nowhere. I played field hockey from age 5 to 25 at a club south of Rotterdam. My play often looked like I was shooting ducks with my (aluminium) hockey stick. Simple passes were stopped with my feet. Not exactly textbook hockey. But I did have one particular talent. If someone blasted a ball 600 miles per hour straight to my face, I was able to stop it like Highlander. Stick up, instinctively blocking it. That memory became the seed for this microfilm. Because sport is myth. The arenas, the crowd shouting, the rain and the mud. The victory. The loss. Out of twenty years on these fields, something else grew too. A brotherhood I'm still very close with today. So this one goes out to the guys I played with.

MICROFILM A new cinematic format. Not a teaser. Not a trailer. Not a short film. A Microfilm is a complete narrative fragment under 60 seconds. It doesn’t promote a story. It is the story - compressed. Every frame carries weight. A Microfilm captures a single mythic moment - as if you stepped into a film already in motion. It trusts the audience. It implies more than it explains. It leaves resonance instead of resolution. Built for an AI-native era, where execution is fast but intention must be sharper. Small runtime. Big intent.

BASURA - A synthetic artist forged from the collision of underground culture. 180–200 BPM gabber distortion. Amen break velocity. Palm-muted riff brutality. The energy I grew up in. But BASURA is more than a music project. A synthetic artist is an instrument, not merely of sound, but of expansion. Like Knights of Khalor, the metal band that worships Khalor Void from the Obsidian Saga, BASURA exists inside a larger ecosystem of original IP. He is not separate from story. He is part of it. BASURA will score upcoming narrative work — one project very soon. And because he is synthetic, he is structurally flexible. He can exist as a music artist. Appear as a character in a short film. Emerge as a comic presence. Cross into game worlds. Same name. Same silhouette. Same mythology. This is the potential of synthetic characters. We are no longer confined to single-medium creation. Music doesn’t stand alone. Film doesn’t stand alone. Games don’t stand alone. They collide like a meltpot of IP. A multiverse of your own mind — where character, sound, narrative and worldbuilding fuse into one ecosystem. That is what BASURA represents.

The Obsidian Ooze is a high-octane sci-fi fantasy short set within The Obsidian Saga, following the events of The Obsidian Rift. Imprisoned in the Nyxcarseris — the dark abyss between realms — the fallen guardian Khalor Void makes first contact with a living, obsidian-black substance that begins to seep into reality. As the Ooze breaches the boundary between worlds, its arrival ripples through New York City, warping space, systems, and order itself. Drawn back into the fracture she once abandoned, Aelarion is forced to confront both her exile and the consequences of a system that believed containment was enough. Designed as a sensory experience rather than a traditional narrative, The Obsidian Ooze moves fast and aggressively, prioritizing mood, pressure, and scale over exposition. The film explores how ideology becomes physical, how systems fail under stress, and what happens when something ancient enters a modern world unprepared for it. This chapter expands the mythology of The Obsidian Saga, setting the stage for a collision between realms that can no longer be controlled.

For a few hours every year, the Netherlands becomes something else. What begins as celebration slowly turns into something ritualistic — a controlled collapse where rules loosen, restraint fades, and chaos is briefly allowed to exist. Fireworks turn streets into battlegrounds. Homes become pressure chambers. Ordinary objects become instruments of excess. TRADITION captures what feels like the final iteration of this cultural ritual. Not as nostalgia. Not as parody. But as a cinematic observation of a tradition at the edge of extinction. Told through the language of action cinema and punk energy, the film mythologizes real moments — preparation, escalation, celebration, destruction, and calm — revealing how tradition functions as a collective release valve. A night where permission is granted to be reckless together, before order inevitably returns. What remains when the ritual ends is not silence, but smoke.

A Christmas fable about light, participation, and what holds tradition together when the night settles. On Christmas Eve, when the streets fall silent and the last doors close, another system takes over. The Wobbos walk the town. They do not judge. They carry light — and check that Christmas still holds. The Lantern Wobbos on Christmas Eve (2025) is a quiet Christmas story inspired by old folklore and storybook traditions. Set in a snow-covered town where lanterns mark warmth and windows answer the dark, the film follows one Wobbo on his route — until a single house does not respond. The story is not about bringing Christmas everywhere, but about noticing where it does not arrive, and what happens when someone chooses to answer the light instead of waiting for it.

GOEIE MIE - A true Dutch horror (2026) Directed by Jan-Willem Blom. Award winner for Best Animation at the Sittannavasal International Film Festival 2025. In 19th-century Leiden, the Netherlands, a beloved nurse named Maria “Goeie Mie” Swanenburg quietly poisoned over a hundred people under the guise of care. She became the most infamous serial killer in Dutch history. This short film reimagines her story through a haunting visual style carved from 19th-century engravings, pulp horror textures, and flickering candlelit shadows. GOEIE MIE blends historical accuracy with cinematic tension: the cramped kitchens of Leiden’s working-class districts, the arsenic bottle hidden behind teacups, the funeral insurance papers, and the doctor whose suspicion began her downfall. It is a portrait of trust turned lethal — and a reminder that folklore is born from fear. This short was created entirely through AI-powered filmmaking tools, with Leonardo’s Lucid model forming the backbone of the engraved-pulp look. Hundreds of frames were generated and animated using image-to-video workflows, Nano Banana for continuity, and custom stylistic constraints (no borders, no modern lighting, no anachronisms). Each shot was crafted to look like a living etching, shadows breathing, ink shifting, faces flickering between compassion and cruelty. More than just a film, GOEIE MIE is the spark of a larger vision: The Folklore Chronicles, an anthology reviving forgotten myths, crimes, and local legends through AI cinema. Created in Leiden — the city where the real events occurred — this project merges historical research, cinematic storytelling, and AI artistry into a single purpose: to resurrect cultural memory and turn the stories we fear into stories we remember.

'Le Théâtre du Diable' (2025) by Jan-Willem Blom - silent horror reborn through AI. Le Théâtre du Diable is a modern reinterpretation of the world’s first horror film — Méliès’ Le Manoir du Diable (1896) — brought to life using AI tools, theatre design, and the visual language of silent cinema. As the “performance” unfolds, the illusions grow darker. Creative process: The film was crafted using a mix of classic theatre staging and modern AI tools: Act 1: Static stage illusion (1:1 format) Entirely still shots, inspired by 1890s theatre photography. Generated using Midjourney + Nano Banana as base images. No camera movement — only actors “jumping” through hard cuts like Méliès’ disappearing tricks. Act 2: The Stage Expands (Transition to 16:9) Black bars slowly move outward as a performer stretches their arms. Curtains open further - revealing the unseen stage wings, ropes, pulleys and candle towers. More modern horror elements enter: moving fog, subtle camera tremors, low frame-rate motion. Challenges & creative problems Movement in 1890s Style: Modern AI tends to create smooth camera motions, but early cinema was static, flickering, imperfect. Matching that “shocking frame jump” required forcing low FPS, artificial jitter, and static camera angles. Hard cuts & tricks like Méliès: AI tools prefer seamless transitions, but the film needed theatrical jump-cuts, sudden disappearances and smoke reveals. These were manually prompted frame-by-frame. Each scene had to match theatre lighting, curtain shadows, moonlight placement, floor reflections and background matte paintings. The illusion of widening the frame, not by changing the aspect ratio, but by “removing the curtains” meant rebuilding the stage wings, ropes, sandbags and candlelight beyond the original image frame. This project is not nostalgia, it’s a resurrection. It asks: What if AI uses the rules of theatre illusion? It’s part horror, part tribute - a reminder that cinema began on stage, with ghosts made from smoke, light and imagination.

SIEGE BEAST (2025) | AI Short Film Born in battle. Forged by metal. Low on mercy. From the shadow of The Obsidian Rift comes Siege Beast — a brutal fusion of heavy metal and medieval fury. Knights of Khalor take the stage as cursed warriors, worshipping Khalor Void and unleashing their first track into cinematic chaos. Created with Arcana Labs and Udio, Siege Beast is where AI-driven music and film collide — raw, over the top, and untamed. Turn it loud. Step into the pit.

From Sneakers to Bootstrapped — the true story of how hundreds of shoes moved thousands of people. 10 years ago, founder Remco Treuren sold his sneaker collection to fund a bold idea: "What if knowledge sharing and selling could live on one platform?" That leap of faith became WebinarGeek — today used by thousands of professionals in 50+ countries to share their stories through webinars, trainings, masterclasses, and product demos. This short AI-powered film celebrates a decade of growth, culture, and stories worth sharing.

Wooden Nightmares (2025) is a short AI dreamscape set in a forgotten fairground - a place where joy has rotted, and imagination has been stripped of its power. Here, the rides are not broken, but waiting. A towering totem of carved beasts, demons, and serpents looms over splintered wooden attractions. Inspired by the shadows of Hook (1991), where Peter Pan forgets who he is, and Stephen King’s The Langoliers (1995), where time and meaning are devoured behind you, Wooden Nightmares is both a dark fantasy and a metaphor for what happens to creativity when we grow older and lose our inner balance. The world was crafted through a combination of Midjourney image generation, splintered wood textures, and layered post-processing in Topaz Labs. Movement was added with MiniMax and Kling AI, bringing the carved creatures to life in unsettling ways. The soundtrack, created by immersive entertainment composer Lorenzo Braun (DefQon.1, Thunderdome, and multiple theme parks), blends haunting music with visceral sound design — squeaking wood, groaning structures — pulling you into the heart of the fairground.

🎬 VIKINGS: MYTHCARVED A stylized AI horror short | Runtime: 2 minutes SYNOPSIS On June 8, 793, a fleet of dragon-prowed ships strikes the quiet shores of Lindisfarne. Inside its stone monastery, holy men chant their final prayers—unaware that history is about to tear through their sacred halls. Told in brutal comic-book style, VIKINGS: MYTHCARVED fuses stylized violence with historical truth, retelling the infamous raid that ignited the Viking Age. Through chiaroscuro shadows, roaring fires, and bloodstained altars, we follow the berserker’s path—from landfall to legend. A haunting museum narrator recounts the true horror of that day, when myth was not written—but carved.

Set in the golden fields of rural Holland, HOWLY COW! is an epic, absurd, high-energy clash between two worlds: the quiet calm of farmland... and the chaotic storm of monsters, warriors, racecars, and mechanical beasts charging in through a swirling interdimensional vortex. When the windmill becomes the gate, all hell breaks loose. A film by Jan-Willem Blom

CTHULHU – LOST TO THE TIDES (2025). A short AI film by Jan-Willem Blom Genre: Cosmic Horror | Runtime: 3,5 min | Format: AI-Powered Watercolor Realism Synopsis: Exactly 100 years after the events in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu (1925), a lone sailor returns to the edge of memory, myth, and madness. CTHULHU – LOST TO THE TIDES is not a remake or a sequel, but a quiet echo - imagined in the cracks of the original story. Through surreal, painterly visuals and a haunting original sea shanty, the film explores what happens when the past refuses to stay submerged. Creative Direction: Set in an ambiguous time - it could be 1926 or 1997 - the story is left open to interpretation. Visuals blend AI-generated watercolor realism with cinematic symbolism: guitars become ships, strings become ropes, and memory becomes myth. The film is structured around an original mournful song, anchoring the emotional rhythm and guiding the viewer through layers of sorrow, memory, and cosmic dread. Themes: The weight of disbelief The echo of trauma The vast, uncaring sea What stories leave behind Credits: Created by: Jan-Willem Blom Produced by: VIDEOSTATE Sound Design & Mix: Wolter Rebergen

KRATOR II - The engine that runs on human diesel: creativity. And when it runs, roads become irrelevant. KRATOR is not a vehicle. It’s creativity manifested on wheels. And like that, KRATOR wasn’t designed. It was felt. Forged in the dark of nights, ignited by obsession and shaped by the inner voice that said: “Burn the path.” From blueprint to explosion, KRATOR is made of the essence of my creative process: brutal, cinematic, mythic. And through a mix of AI tools and 38,000 pounds of metal; this is what sits under the hood: - Creative concept and prompt structure: ChatGPT - Image generation: Pimento - Image upscaling: Topaz Labs - Video generation: Kling AI 2.0 + 1.6 Pro - Video upscaling: Topaz Labs - Sound design: Envato elements + ElevenLabs - Title design: DaFont + Adobe After Effects - Edit : Adobe Premiere - Poster design: Canva KRATOR II: Roads are irrelevant.

WHAT GROWS FROM HERE (2025) is an original short AI film created in under 48 hours for the Runway GEN:48 filmmaking challenge by Jan-Willem Blom, founder of Videostate. A cinematic meditation on memory, decay, and the fragile breath of time. The story unfolds in reverse, tracing humanity's collapse back to its primal beginnings. Created with AI tools including Leonardo.ai, Runway Gen-4, and Topaz Labs for upscaling, blending handcrafted storytelling with watercolor dreamscapes. Written, directed, and produced by Jan-Willem Blom. Made with love, three hours of sleep, and relentless creative fire.

Scientists have confirmed the volcano didn’t erupt… KRATOR just started its engine. Spec ad for KRATOR: Volcano car.

Something was uncovered. Now, nothing holds. There is no aftermath. Only the fracture. Fracture|Front touches on one of the biggest existential questions of all. Coming to Escape in 2025. ---------------------- Toolstack: - Prompt structure: ChatGPT (trained on Arcana's prompt-guide) - Image generation: Arcana - Image upscale: Topaz Labs - Video generation: Runway Gen-4 Turbo - Video upscale: Topaz Labs - Sound design: Envato + ElevenLabs - Title design: Imagen 3 + Adobe After Effects - Edit: Adobe Premiere - Thumbnail design: Pimento + Canva

Spec ad for Monster Energy - if you see a giant caffeine-fueled beast sprinting through your city… do not engage! So… turns out AI is really powerful. What started as a fun Monster Energy spec ad for the hashtag#SaturdayMonsterChallenge took an unexpected turn… I generated the initial visuals with Pimento, upscaled them using Topaz Labs, and stitched it all together in Adobe Premiere. But as I was refining the energy effects in After Effects… strange things started happening. My neighbor, who was casually sipping on a Monster, suddenly got a crazed look in his eye. At first, it seemed like a joke… until he bench-pressed his Tesla. If you hear loud roars and see green lightning, do not approach. Also, if Monster Energy is reading this… my bad. Happy April 1st! "This energy drink doesn't give you wings, it gives you legs". ---- This is a speculative advertisement created for creative purposes only. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Monster brand in any way.

'Wild ideas roam free' is a visual poem told in 15 surreal vignettes. The film explores a world where the roles of humans and animals are reversed—challenging our perceptions of power, instinct, and the untamed nature of ideas. I started out designing it as a reminder that creativity cannot be caged. That true inspiration thrives in the wild.

The world's first isometric 3D murder mystery. Step inside the legendary Tudor Mansion like never before—brought to life as a fully immersive diorama where every frame reveals a new clue. Inspired by the iconic Clue board game, this cinematic experience blends classic whodunnit storytelling with stunning AI-generated design. Dr. Black has been murdered. The suspects are in place. The weapons are within reach. The only question is: Who did it? Where? And with what?

A cosmic tale of balance. A mythology on the story behind stories. Ever since I was a kid, I was mesmerized by the movies in my local video store—studying the artwork, reading every synopsis. I even knew films inside out before I had seen them. Franchises always fascinated me. In sci-fi and horror, stories never truly ended. Even when the villain was defeated, it was only a temporary strike—a moment to regroup in purgatory before returning stronger. That idea—the belief that all stories are governed by a cosmic balance—had been forming in my mind for years. But it wasn’t until the Saturday Monster Challenge on Linkedin sparked a new train of thought that everything clicked into place. From there, The Phoenix and the Serpent took shape as a mythology built around the Charm monster theme. Today, I’m proud to share it with you. Dedicated to my grandparents (94 and 92), who took me to the cinema in the early ‘90s and taught me the magic of storytelling.

When elegance meets adrenaline. My spec ad "For your drive only." A commercial that captures the essence of luxury driving and the thrill of the classic James Bond car chase scenes. My vision for this ad was to create a narrative that feels like a mini-film. The protagonist embodies the essence of adventure, sophistication, and style—traits synonymous with the Porsche brand. Through this commercial, I aimed to create a cinematic experience that showcases the blend of elegance and adrenaline. Creative process: - Image generation: Flux.1 by Black Forest Labs - Image upscaling: Topaz Labs - Video animation: KLING - AI Videos + MiniMax - Video upscaling: Topaz Labs - Audio and SFX: Envato Elements. - Video edit : Adobe Premiere Pro (4K render) - Poster Design: Ideogram + Canva

'The Harvester' is set in the town of Willow’s End, where local legend warn of The Harvester—a sinister figure who appears every Halloween when the moon is fullest, claiming victims as payment for an age-old betrayal. Four friends realize that The Harvester isn’t just a legend. As the friends dig deeper into the town’s dark past, they find themselves hunted through the fields of Willow’s End and learn the terrifying truth about The Harvester.