R2 / AI Experiments / Making of

DIMDIMKurdistan
Bradost
1609

قەڵای دمدم

In 1609 Amir Khan Lepzerin, the Kurdish emir of Bradost, rebuilt the fortress of Dimdim and held it against the army of Shah Abbas I. Qalay Dimdim retells that siege in Kurdish, adapted from Arab Shamilov’s novel Dimdim. Part A is cut: 6:24 and five scenes, from 247 generated takes, built on period research, 34 cast characters and a castle rebuilt in 3D.

TopViewSeedance 2.5 video
Nano Banana · Flowfirst frames, sheets
ChatGPT · Codexconcepts, prompts
Magnific · Freepikcastle edits, upscales
Blender · 3ds Maxcastle, blocking
ClickUpboards, notes
ElevenLabsKurdish dialogue
Premiere Proedit, sound

Aerial view of Dimdim castle on its cliff above the river

6:24cut so far
247video takes
75picks
34characters
1,063rejected images

APR 2026 / SCRIPT V01 → V07 / 54 SOURCES · 282 REIMAGINES / CLICKUP “AI REIMAGINE”

Research first

Dimdim is a real fortress and a real siege, so every costume, weapon and wall was checked against a source first. The Kurdish script went through seven drafts and was broken down by character, location, wardrobe, props and shot. Then the historical research. No picture of Bradost in 1609 survives, so the evidence was layered: Safavid portraits and court painting, travellers’ woodcuts and engravings, 19th-century photographs of Kurdish dress, museum pieces, and the ruins of Dimdim today.

Wall of research sources: engravings, portraits, costumes, weapons, landscapes and interiors — A THE SOURCES · COSTUME, COURT, MILITARY, LOCATIONS, ARTIFACTS, WARDROBE CLICK TO ENLARGE

B AI Reimagine

Engravings and old photos can't be handed to a video model: they come back as engravings. So each source was rebuilt as a photograph that keeps its costume and cut. These photos became the references the characters and sets were built from. Drag to compare.

Shah Abbas I reimagined as a photograph — SHAH ABBAS I · ENGRAVED PORTRAIT

Engraved portrait of Shah Abbas I — SHAH ABBAS I · ENGRAVED PORTRAIT

The Kurdish officer reimagined as a photograph — KURDISH OFFICER · 19TH-C. STUDIO PHOTO

Studio photograph of a seated Kurdish officer — KURDISH OFFICER · 19TH-C. STUDIO PHOTO

Kurdish nobles reimagined in colour — KURDISH NOBLES · PHOTO, 1882

Photograph of Kurdish nobles, 1882 — KURDISH NOBLES · PHOTO, 1882

A Zand court interior reimagined — ZAND COURT · MUSEUM DIORAMA, SHIRAZ

Museum diorama of Karim Khan Zand's court in Shiraz — ZAND COURT · MUSEUM DIORAMA, SHIRAZ

Kurdish labourers from Van reimagined in colour — KURDS OF VAN · PHOTO, 1894

Photograph of Kurdish labourers from Van, 1894 — KURDS OF VAN · PHOTO, 1894

Three Kurdish men reimagined in colour — KURDISH DRESS · 19TH-C. STUDIO PHOTO

Studio photograph of three Kurdish men in traditional dress — KURDISH DRESS · 19TH-C. STUDIO PHOTO

Melchior Lorck woodcut of a Kurdish warrior, 1576 — KURDISH WARRIOR · LORCK, 1576

The warrior reimagined — KURDISH WARRIOR · LORCK, 1576

Photo of a mail helmet with plumes — MAIL HELMET

Engraving of Kurdish gentlemen — KURDISH GENTLEMEN

Kurdish gentlemen reimagined — KURDISH GENTLEMEN

V07 Kurdish script, latest draft
2 English screenplay versions
7 location sheets
2 shot lists, A & B
Wardrobe, props, set dressing, animals

34 CHARACTERS / 1,063 REJECTED IMAGES / 12 CLICKUP WHITEBOARDS

Casting by rejection

Every character got a lane on a ClickUp whiteboard. Faces trail down the board in the order they were generated, with props, weapons and wardrobe beside them. Red strokes cross out what didn't work, and notes say what to fix. The keeper became a three-panel sheet (front, back, face), which is attached to every shot that character appears in.

Part A’s cast: Khurshid, head of the bazaar · Sarkan, the gatekeeper · Asfandyar, eldest son of Alian Beg, chief of the Takuri · Shah Abbas, whose army is on its way · and 30 more, down to the guards.

Asfandyar's whole ClickUp lane: face rounds, props, horses, wardrobe and the locked sheets below — ASFANDYAR · WHOLE LANE

Close-up of Asfandyar's lane: sheets and the shots he was tested in — ASFANDYAR · CLOSE UP

Close-up of Khurshid's lane: body and outfit sheets, horse tests, alley tests, the turban look picked with a red arrow — KHURSHID

Close-up of the guards' lane: two guards built from body sheet to gate tests — GUARDS

Close-up of Shah Abbas's lane: robe and ring sheets and the court and courtyard tests — SHAH ABBAS

CLICKUP LANES · CLICK ANY BOARD TO OPEN IT FULL SIZE

Locked, then cast · each sheet put into the scenes it was built for

ASFANDYAR

ELDEST SON OF ALIAN BEG

Asfandyar's sheet: front, side and back with the face in three angles — THE SHEET

Asfandyar riding hard below the towers — IN SCENE

NOT CHOSEN · 2 OF 20

Another Asfandyar look that was not chosen

KHURSHID

HEAD OF THE BAZAAR · ONE CHARACTER, START TO FINISH

Khurshid three-panel sheet: front, back and face — FRONT · BACK · FACE

Khurshid on horseback in the finished film — IN THE FILM · SCENE 3, SHOT 5

8 OF 19 REJECTED · KHURSHID ALONETHE KEEPER

SHAH ABBAS

WHOSE ARMY IS ON ITS WAY

Shah Abbas's sheet: cream robe and cloak in four angles, rings and the face — THE SHEET

Shah Abbas walking through the courtyard at dusk — IN SCENE

NOT CHOSEN · 2 OF 21

Another Shah Abbas look that was not chosen

KHURSHID’S GUARDS

SHIELDS AND SPEARS

Khurshid's two guards at the gate with spears and round shields

Guard sheet: four angles with spear and shield, and three face views — THE SHEET

A guard alone at the castle gate, banners behind — IN SCENE

NOT CHOSEN · 2 OF 23

A Khurshid’s guards look that was not chosen

Another Khurshid’s guards look that was not chosen

MAY → OCT 2026 / CHATGPT · FREEPIK · MAGNIFIC · BLENDER · 3DS MAX · SEEDANCE

Building Dimdim

The castle took six months and 247 discarded versions. It started as a town-square sketch and a sunset citadel on a crag (Castle B), went through a mountain-peak fortress that was dropped, and in August settled as Castle A: a walled town on a cliff above the river, with one road climbing to the gate. From then on every change was drawn straight onto the image and fed back in, until the daylight look was locked on 13 October.

First concept of the town square below the castle — **02 MAY** First concept, the town square

Sunset fortress city — **04 MAY** Sunset city on a crag

Castle B, a citadel on the crag at sunset — **04 MAY** Castle B, citadel on the crag

Fortress on a mountain peak — **29 JUL** Peak fortress, dropped

Expansion drawn on top of the castle — **04 AUG** Expansion drawn on top

Tower texture test — **06 AUG** Stone & tower tests

Detail slice of the castle — **07 AUG** Sliced for detail checks

Top view of the castle — **17 AUG** Top view, layout locked

Time of day test — **10 SEP** Time-of-day tests

Final daylight castle — **13 OCT** Daylight look, locked

August, close up · steering Castle A by drawing on it

ClickUp board: river and road sketch, prompt, castles and a column of rejects struck through — CLICKUP · RIVER & ROAD SKETCH, PROMPT, A COLUMN OF REJECTS STRUCK THROUGH

Castle concept with notes and strokes drawn over it — NOTES ON THE FRAME · “BBET BA BARD” MAKE IT STONE · “AMA BA NZMBETAWA” LOWER THIS

The road to the gate

The castle needed one believable way in. The road was drawn by hand on the frame, along the river and up to the foot of the gate ramp, and that drawing was sent back with the image as the instruction. Drag to see the drawing become the road.

Planning drawing: river, roads, gate ramp and a paving reference marked in colour — THE FIRST PLAN · RIVER, ROADS, GATE RAMP, PAVING

The castle with the road built in — MAGNIFIC · THE DRAWING AS THE INSTRUCTION DRAG

The castle with the road drawn in yellow — MAGNIFIC · THE DRAWING AS THE INSTRUCTION DRAG

September · rebuilding the town inside the walls

From the air the castle worked. Up close it fell apart: the town inside the walls was soft, melted shapes, nothing like the mud-brick and stone houses of a Kurdish town. So it was rebuilt in Photoshop one square at a time: select a section, describe what belongs there, generate, keep it or go again. Every prompt starts by locking the camera, the sunset light and the layout, so each new piece sits in the old frame. 50 generations, each prompt kept as its layer’s name.

The castle after the town inside the walls was rebuilt — MAGNIFIC BASE, 2048 PX · PHOTOSHOP, 8192 PX DRAG

The castle base image, with a soft, blurred town inside the walls — MAGNIFIC BASE, 2048 PX · PHOTOSHOP, 8192 PX DRAG

The finished castle with the outline of every generated section drawn over it — EVERY SHAPE IS ONE GENERATION · 32 HOUSES & STREETS · 9 WALL STONE · 8 AGEING THE STONE · 1 RIVER

The plaza and houses, rebuilt — THE PLAZA · “REPLACE THE EXISTING SMALL HOUSES WITH HISTORICALLY GROUNDED KURDISH …”

The plaza and houses in the base image — THE PLAZA · “REPLACE THE EXISTING SMALL HOUSES WITH HISTORICALLY GROUNDED KURDISH …”

The market, rebuilt — THE MARKET · “EDIT ONLY THE SELECTED MARKETPLACE AREA …”

The market in the base image — THE MARKET · “EDIT ONLY THE SELECTED MARKETPLACE AREA …”

The east tower and the houses behind it, rebuilt — THE EAST CORNER · “TREAT THIS AREA AS A FORTIFIED CORNER …”

The east tower and the houses behind it in the base image — THE EAST CORNER · “TREAT THIS AREA AS A FORTIFIED CORNER …”

The gate towers with weathered stone — THE GATE · “SMALL CRACKS, CHIPPED STONE EDGES, UNEVEN BLOCK SURFACES”

The gate towers in the base image — THE GATE · “SMALL CRACKS, CHIPPED STONE EDGES, UNEVEN BLOCK SURFACES”

Every unused castle version, oldest first — 247 VERSIONS THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT · 36 OF THEM, MAY TO OCTOBER, OLDEST FIRST CLICK TO ENLARGE

Into 3D

A single image still can't hold up from every angle. So the locked look was rebuilt in Blender, matched to it camera by camera, then moved to 3ds Max for the flights. The grey camera moves became the motion reference for the video model, with the still giving the look: the generated pass follows the 3ds Max move frame for frame.

Blender reconstruction of the castle — B BLENDER REBUILD

Reference image: aerial view of the gate road — C REFERENCE · AERIAL GATE

The same view from the matching Blender camera — SAME CAMERA IN BLENDER · ONE OF 12 MATCHED

D THE 3DS MAX CAMERA MOVE AND A GENERATED PASS ON THE SAME MOVE EARLY STAGE, BEFORE THE LOOK WAS LOCKED

Seedance aerial reveal of the castle in daylight — E SEEDANCE 2.5 · THE AERIAL REVEAL, LOCKED LOOK

PROMPT Establishing montage, Seedance 2.5 Omni Reference open

DIMDIM CASTLE — ESTABLISHING MONTAGE | 30 seconds. Six shots, exactly 5 seconds each. Clean straight cuts at 00:05, 00:10, 00:15, 00:20 and 00:25.

Continuity. Bradost, Kurdistan, 1609 AD. Use the supplied image as the architectural, geographical and lighting reference, not a mandatory opening frame. Create new viewpoints within the same three-dimensional castle. Preserve its summit citadel, terraced town, defensive walls, towers, main gate, approach roads, stone bridge and river…

00:00–00:05 · Exterior castle reveal. Extreme-wide elevated oblique view of the fortress, rocky cliffs, river on screen-left and snowy mountain backdrop…

SCENE 4 · SHOT 16 / 3DS MAX → FLOW → SEEDANCE

Riders through the gate

Five people, four horses and a crane move. AI can't hold that from words alone. So the shot was blocked in 3ds Max with coloured stand-ins: red Khurshid, blue escort, green Sarkan, yellow Asfandyar, magenta second rider. The prompt tells the AI who each colour is. Five rounds of first frames fixed the spacing; 17 takes found the move.

C Behind B: the first frame, five rounds

First frame attempt 2, reframed — V02 · REFRAME

First frame attempt 3, escort on the ledge — V03 · ESCORT

First frame attempt 4, parapet — V04 · PARAPET

The first frame used for the shot: Khurshid and the riders at the gate, escort and sentries spaced out — V05 · SPACING

Character and horse reference sheet for the shot — THE SHOT’S REFERENCE SHEET · CAST + HORSES

@Video2 sets the camera path and each rider’s path. Its coloured figures are stand-ins: red = Khurshid (@Image4) on his horse (@Image1); blue = his escort with spear and shield (@Image2); yellow = Asfandyar (@Image8); magenta = the second horseman (@Image7).

All four are already mounted. They ride at a light trot through the open gate (@Image3), Khurshid first, the others in single file behind him. Sarkan (@Image5) and the two sentries stay still at the gate.

Camera follows @Video2’s single crane move and ends looking through the arch as the last rider goes inside.

SCENE 4 · SHOT 14 / ELEVENLABS → SEEDANCE 2.5

A line in Kurdish

For dialogue, the voice comes first. The Kurdish line was voiced in ElevenLabs, then given to Seedance as the lip-sync driver. Every reference gets one strict job: his sheet for identity, the road for background only, and a frame from Shot 12 for the light, so the close-up matches the coverage around it.

THE LINE ئەسفەندیارم، کوڕە گەورەی ئەلیان بەگم سەرۆکخێڵی تاکوڕی “I am Asfandyar, eldest son of Alian Beg, chief of the Takuri tribe.”

OMNI REFERENCE · 1080P · 6 S · ★★★ PICK · SLOT NUMBERS AS IN THE PROMPT

IMAGE 1Identity & costume only
IMAGE 2His horse, kept soft behind him
IMAGE 3Background only, defocused
IMAGE 5Light & colour, from Shot 12
AUDIO · VIDEO 1 SLOTVoice only, used once, in full

PROMPT Shot 14, framing and performance open

One continuous static CLOSE-UP of Asfandyar, head, shoulders and upper chest, standing on foot. His own horse faces generally toward the camera on screen-LEFT but stands several metres BEHIND him… Asfandyar’s eyes and face remain the sole sharp point of attention.

Use natural 75–85 mm perspective and shallow depth of field… Maintain the established side of the conversation axis from his earlier dialogue coverage. He looks slightly upward, never into the lens.

Performance. He identifies himself respectfully, earnestly and with restrained urgency. Preserve the mild fatigue of the ride through natural breathing… No music, subtitles or on-screen text.

29 OCT – 06 NOV / PREMIERE PRO · LUMETRI

One film, one colour

Generated clips come out bright and even, and each model has its own colour. In the edit every shot got a Lumetri grade and film grain to pull them into one film: deeper shadows, calmer skies, film grain and a 2:1 letterbox. The assembly went through five cuts in nine days. Drag to compare the raw take with the graded film.

The castle reveal, graded — MAIN TITLE · THE CASTLE REVEAL

The castle reveal, raw take — MAIN TITLE · THE CASTLE REVEAL

The caravan at the gate, graded — SCENE 4 · THE CARAVAN AT THE GATE

The caravan at the gate, raw — SCENE 4 · THE CARAVAN AT THE GATE

The army, graded — SCENE 1 · THE ARMY APPROACHES

The army, raw — SCENE 1 · THE ARMY APPROACHES

Assembly cuts

V016:15
V026:27
V035:21
V046:27
V056:24

In the mix

DIALOGUEKurdish, ElevenLabs, restored per phrase
MUSICLicensed library score, epic medieval
SOUNDHooves, wind, fire, the volley
COLOURLumetri + grain per shot, 2:1 letterbox
TITLESEnglish + Kurdish, subtitled

QALAY DIMDIM · PART A, SCENES 1–5 · SCENES 6–11 IN PRODUCTION · ADAPTED FROM “DIMDIM” BY ARAB SHAMILOV (EREBÊ ŞEMO) · DIRECTED, DESIGNED AND EDITED BY BLEND ABDULLAH

Back to

AI Experiments

DIMDIMKurdistanBradost1609

DIMDIMKurdistan
Bradost
1609