Case Study

Sleepy America Tales Youtube Channel.

ROLE: AI Filmmaker, Research, Prompt Engineering, AI Art Direction, Editing & Sound Design

Sleepy America Tales is a long-form history-for-sleep series for people whose minds refuse to switch off at night. The format has already found a real audience, with the Area 51 episode reaching more than 264k views on YouTube. Instead of using the familiar narration style heard across many sleep-history channels, I wanted the series to have its own identity. I used ElevenLabs to create a warm Burt Reynolds voice that gives each episode a distinctive personality.

The stories cover subjects such as Route 66, the Space Race, Project MK Ultra, the Civil War, Area 51, and other chapters of American history. Each episode gives a wandering mind something interesting to follow without demanding too much attention. Calm narration, restrained visuals, and slow repetitive motion help the experience fade naturally into the background as the listener relaxes.

Each episode starts with extensive research. From there, I use Google NotebookLM to organize source material, explore historical details, and shape the long-form narrative before production begins. I then handle the research, prompt engineering, AI art direction, editing, sound design, and overall creative direction.

For narration, I use ElevenLabs to create the distinctive Burt Reynolds voice. Visually, I developed a retro-futurist, graphic-novel-inspired style with cel-shaded artwork and restrained animation. The openings use more active cinematic sequences before transitioning into subtle looping environments such as campfires, night landscapes, and atmospheric interiors.

As a result, the screen stays visually interesting without becoming something the viewer feels compelled to watch. Finally, Google Veo and other generative tools help me build extended, multi-hour episodes while maintaining a consistent visual and auditory tone.