I just spent my whole evening playing with ReelMind’s Nolan, and honestly, I’m still kind of reeling..
I was supposed to watch one episode of whatever show I’m pretending to follow and go to sleep early for once. Guess what, that didn’t happen. Some guy in a random Discord dropped a link to Reelmind’s Nolan around nine and said “early access just opened more spots”, so obviously I clicked. Just the time to fill the waitlist form half asleep, and I woke up to the approval email, and suddenly it’s past midnight, and I haven’t moved from my chair.
First thing I did was the most basic test possible imho, because I still thought it was gonna be another toy that makes thirty-second clips with melted faces. Typed “two people meeting on a rainy train platform at night, nothing fancy”. Hit the create button and went to grab some water. Came back, and the video was already done, in just 2 bare full minutes. The train lights streaking past in the background actually looked wet. When the girl turned her face the reflection in the puddle moved with her. I just sat there like…okay. Okay then.
So I kept going. Made a quiet argument in a kitchen because that’s the kind of boring thing I figured would break it. Nope. The camera started wide on the fridge light, slowly pushed in while the guy was cutting words off mid sentence, paused on her hand gripping the counter so hard the knuckles were white. I didn’t tell it to do any of that. It just did independently. I’ll only tell you that my coffee went cold somewhere around the fourth rewatch.
At some point, my brain obviously went exactly where yours is going right now, I know you. I didn’t type anything really explicit only because beta rules are still PG13 or some, and I’m not trying to get kicked out on day 1. But I kept rewriting the prompts in my head. Same slow hotel hallway walk, except this time the tie comes off. Same mirror shot except someone’s shirt is already half unbuttoned. The kind of long, stupidly hot buildup that normal porn skips because nobody has patience in porn, and moreover, nobody has patience in 2025. I could already see how you’d feed it a 10 page outline and walk away with something that actually feels like a movie instead of a highlight reel.
Right now, the longest single clip is roughly 2 minutes. But they already have a little “continue scene” button that keeps the same cast, same lighting, same everything. I did four in a row of the train platform story just to test it. Same two actors every time, same scar on the guy’s eyebrow that I added on the second render. Same raincoat that got progressively wetter. By the fourth clip, they were arguing and you could actually feel the story, even though I never wrote dialogue for the earlier parts. That’s when I had to stand up and walk around the room because, come on, what the hell.
The discord is half film students losing their minds over framing choices and half people who are very obviously counting the days until somebody flips the adult switch and open the cages.. Somebody posted a 40-second private test earlier today that disappeared idk in eight minutes, and yeah.. it was better than stuff I’ve paid 30$ just a month ago. Not gonna describe it here because it’s not the important thing now, But yeah, you know.
I’m not saying that it’s all perfect without errors or brakes, the hands still render weird thing sometimes, it can outcome six fingers on some scenes, you know. Or crowd scenes half the times let you feel you are drunk, or they are..
Whatever. Every single update they push (and i saw they push them almost daily, take it with a grain of salt) fixes some of those problems. Anyway I refreshed tonight and suddenly skin tones don’t look so plastic to me, my impression. Tomorrow it’ll probably be hair physics or something. It’s moving that fast.
Beta is free while they train the model, but the longer testers are saying 20 bucks feels about right once it goes public. If it can go below, around 15, I’ll be the first with my card in hands and take my money!
I keep thinking about that script that’s been sitting in my notes app for two years. The one that’s way too specific and way too long to ever actually film. The one with the slow burn in the library that nobody would ever pay actors to shoot. I could type the whole thing tomorrow and have something watchable by dinner. I don’t know, consistent faces, matching outfits, scenes related one with the others, dialogues that actually remember what happened twenty minutes ago. The coherent character arcs instead of just positions.
My cat jumped on the keyboard during one render and accidentally added a zoom on the guy’s watch. Looked better than what I would’ve done on purpose. I left it in. Maybe I invented this part, but it gives you the idea on what I mean.
Anyway, before I go to sleep..I know I’m just gonna open another tab and start outlining the library thing while the moment is hot. If you’re even a little bit into this stuff, go throw your email on the list and try it yourself. Worst case, you forget about it in a week, the best scenario, you wake up to an email that says the rules changed and suddenly you get to make whatever NSFW ai generated movie that has been living rent-free in your head for years.
I’m not saying it’s perfect yet. I’m saying it’s already better than it has any right to be. And it’s only getting started. Ok, probably I’m not gonna close the editor yet. Whatever. See you guys on the other side when the toggle drops!