Google and former Pixar filmmaker use AI to create animated film 'Dear Upstairs Neighbors'
Google has collaborated with animation industry veterans, including former Pixar animation filmmaker Connie He, to create the animated film ' Dear Upstairs Neighbors ' using generative AI tools.
'Dear Upstairs Neighbors': Animated film made with Google AI
'Dear Upstairs Neighbors' follows Ada, a young woman whose sleep is kept from her by her noisy neighbors. As Ada tries to imagine the source of the noise coming from upstairs, the line between reality and imagination gradually blurs, culminating in an epic battle for peace and sanity. Watch the trailer below.
“Dear Upstairs Neighbors” (Trailer) - YouTube
The protagonist, Ada, was designed by production designer Yingzong Xin using extruded proportions and angular shape language.
Character model sheet by Yingzong Xin. Ada's facial expressions are very expressive.
Ada's bedroom is decorated in muted tones.
Ada's hallucinations are presented in a stark style and neon color palette that sets her apart from the 'real world' of her bedroom.
The ever-changing painterly style conveys Ada's changing emotions through color and texture.
In the most tense moments, an abstract expressionist style dominates the entire scene.
The team's initial goal was to enable animation artists to harness the full creative potential of generative AI without sacrificing artistic control due to its unpredictability. To clarify the vision for the film, He created storyboards and commissioned award-winning production designer Xin to create concept art and character designs.
To create the animation while staying true to Xin's design, Google's research team developed new AI capabilities that Google says fine-tuned its custom Veo and Imagen models to enable the AI model to learn new visual concepts from just a few sample images.
It was also difficult to control the rhythm of Ada's sleepy fingers typing, the comical timing of her facial expressions, and the precise framing of the camera shots using text alone. So, inspired by the way animators communicate visually by drawing pictures or acting out scenes, Google developed a new workflow that allowed animators to visually communicate their intent by creating rough animations using the tools of their choice.
Specifically, the rough 3D animations created by animators are converted into final animations using Veo. By converting rough videos into final animation videos, artists can continue working using the animation production tools they are familiar with.
The final animation was then fine-tuned and refined to 4K resolution using Veo's upscaling capabilities. Veo's 4K upscaling model is available in Flow, but to meet the real-world needs of filmmakers, it will also be released in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI in late January 2026.
'Dear Upstairs Neighbors' will have a preview screening at the Sundance Film Festival .
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