Hayden Lee

Some years ago I put up my life savings and spent three years to make my own cyberpunk movie. It was a painful, grueling experience but it was also me living my purpose and being true to myself. I’ll be sharing the trials and triumphs of being a filmmaker on X.

"Awakening of Consciousness" [fragment] SERA: Valkyrie Unit 17 CYBERSTATE Tools: @Kling_ai @Hailuo_AI @Fluxai_Ai Thanks: @StevieMac03 @Kling_ai [CORESEC INTERNAL LOG: N-GRFT.017] retrieved from CORESEC blacksite ██-██ > neural graft assimilation rate: 98.7% >…

I used to make Backrooms videos using Maya and rendered with Arnold. It'd take anywhere between 3-6 minutes a frame, depending on resolution and sampling rate. A 720P five second clip would take about 8-10 hours on a single 3090 GPU. I generated this 5-second AI clip with…

“She wasn’t dancing. She was broadcasting.” “I felt something… like a memory that wasn’t mine.” “The lights on her skin moved like a prayer.” #Cyberstate #NeuroSyncDancer #cyberpunk #CORESEC #City17 #SciFi

"This meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes…

Using AI to recreate recurring childhood dreams... On my 7th week of learning AI filmmaking, it took ~8 hours to make this 30-second sequence: •200+ image iterations •50+ video iterations I'm finding that storytelling with AI is still manual, just different. Hailuo gave the…

When a cyborg goes wall climbing without a safety harness... Continuity of action for the climbing shots was done with Flux Kontext. AI Film Production Stats: - Time: ~70 hours - Image to video generations: 168 - Image generations: ~1,900 - Mental state: numb Tools: - Video:…

The feeling's more important than logic. Stats: — Time: ~29 hours Image to video generations: 55 — Flux Kontext and image gens: ~500 — Mental state: mild existential angst I couldn't nail the motion of the tornados but good enough for now #AIart #aivideo #cyberpunk #cyberstate

Most of these shots were made in the first two weeks of testing AI filmmaking tools (listed below) for my cyberpunk anthology. My previous live action/CG films took months, years...you're always trying to make do with what you got, maximizing limited resources and then…

I’m going to start sharing my recent film work here. I’ve recently started transitioning into an AI filmmaking workflow and it’s bananas how advanced this technology is. Within the space of a few weeks as a total newbie, I’ve created content that would have taken me many…

Self-sabotage tells you that visibility is dangerous. Overcoming it means proving that visibility is survivable — one small release at a time.

Overcoming self-sabotage starts with a brutal question: “If my system works today, will I let it launch today?” If your gut says “no” — the enemy isn’t readiness. It’s fear.

because as long as you’re preparing, you don’t have to risk exposure.

It keeps you preparing, building systems, testing workflows —

Self-sabotage loves the endless warm-up.

One way to spot self-sabotage: If your goals keep changing the closer you get to achieving them, it’s not because you evolved — it’s because you’re dodging the spotlight.

Self-sabotage isn’t loud. It whispers: “Let’s wait till it’s better.” “Let’s build one more tool.” “Let’s stay safe in the lab a little longer.”

If you’re constantly “tweaking the system” but never sharing the work, that’s not refinement. That’s fear in disguise.

Self-sabotage disguises itself as virtue. It tells you: “You need more discipline. More prep. More perfection.” But what it’s really doing is stalling you from being seen.

Your old self will grieve when discipline is no longer the struggle. You’ll feel lost without the battle you’ve known. But that’s the sign: It’s time to grow into something greater.