Tracy Harwood and Phil Rice review RUS-T, John Martin’s science fiction short about a robot abandoned on Mars. They discuss its expressive character design and story of care and disposability, then trace the production workflow through Reallusion AI Studio, Character Creator and Seedance 2.0. How much control does image guided video generation give a filmmaker? And can a film succeed as both a story and a demonstration of new tools? Alongside praise for RUS-T’s character consistency, Tracy and Phil examine its visual slips, frequent crossfades and unresolved questions about its voices, music and sound design.
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Show Notes & Links
RUS-T | AI Sci-Fi Film Created with Reallusion AI Studio & Seedance 2.0 by John Martin, released 31 August 2026
Creating film with AI Studio - Reallusion https://magazine.reallusion.com/2026/08/28/ai-studio-storytellers-directing-ai-films-with-diverse-3d-assets/
Useful commentary on character stabilisation - https://magazine.reallusion.com/2026/06/05/ai-studio-storytellers-space-rocks-sci-fi-filmmaking-with-consistent-ai-actors/
and here is John's explainer of how the film was made -