I unlocked the story in my child’s imagination with Google Veo.

A recent conversation with my colleague about technology intersecting modern parenting made me wonder: can I bring my kid’s uncanny imagination to life? Could I create imagery for his amazing cast of imaginary characters?

Meet the crew: Chubby Chicken, George the Gorilla, Jerry the Giraffe, Perry the Penguin, and Ollie the Octopus.

So I set out to experiment. Hilarity ensued, but I learned a lot in the process.

Hilarity ensues

First challenge: I spent hours perfecting text-to-image descriptions for each character. Got them looking perfect. Ready to create my masterpiece video!

Then discovered most generative video tools are text-to-video, not image-to-video. Cue sound of deflating balloon.

Shifting to Google Flow and Veo, I started prompting individual scenes. Each scene was treated as completely distinct - no context carried over between scenes.

The result?

  • Scene 1: Chubby opens a door.
  • Scene 2: George bursts through an ENTIRELY different door.
  • Scene 3: Our remaining characters enter yet ANOTHER door.
  • Scene 4: The characters are drawn completely new, unrelated to previous scenes.
A still frame from one of the Veo-generated scenes: a cartoon character stepping through a brightly colored door
One of many doors… none of which seemed to agree on what was behind them.

The AI generated some… interesting artifacts:

  • A door with handles on BOTH sides.
  • A door that explodes but somehow remains open.
  • Jerry’s shirt mysteriously vanishing mid-scene.
  • A fish on Perry’s tail that randomly disappears (in fairness the fish on Perry’s tail was a result of my bad prompting, the disappearing however…).
  • A random human appearing (zero prompting about humans!).

My favorite moment of Veo ignoring my prompting: I prompted “pan up to the words Happy Birthday Chubsters written in clouds.”

Result: pans up perfectly… clouds say “Happy Chubsters.”

Key learnings

  • Story composition - each scene needs to be self-contained.
  • Prompting specificity - AI takes liberties when you’re not crystal clear.
  • Text generation - still not there yet (though we knew this).

But here’s the magic: my kid watched this on repeat, laughing hysterically until he got hiccups.

We may be a ways off from replacing professional illustrators and animators, but the fact that I - someone with zero artistic skills - could visually create a story for my kid? Mind-blowing.

So I’m doing it again… but based on my own imagination next time. Stay tuned for my sci-fi short.

PS: Any Veo veterans have tips and tricks to share? I’d love to learn from your experiences.