When an anglerfish—one of the ocean’s most mysterious creatures—was discovered unexpectedly surfacing from the deep, it sparked the idea for Surface. Inspired by this rare phenomenon, filmmaker William Sikora III set out to craft an emotional, visually stunning animated short that blends technology, artistry, and storytelling. In this interview, he shares the creative journey behind Surface, the challenges of bringing Lumi’s world to life, and his thoughts on the evolving role of AI in filmmaking.
What inspired you to tell this story about an anglerfish? Is there a real-life connection or something symbolic about this creature?
When the world heard the news of this fish that lives on the bottom of the ocean in complete darkness 24/7 traveled to the surface for whatever reason it immediately sparked ideas in my head. Why did the anglerfish swim up? Sources stated different reasons but I wanted to go with something that was gonna be inspiring.
The visuals in Surface look stunning. What was your approach to designing the underwater world and the anglerfish itself?
I wanted to create a void of loneliness visually, the beginning is so empty and Lumi is alone, it feels desolate. When Lumi discovers the world above, it’s vivid and alive, there is so much to see. Also, with the character, he looks very dark and his colors become more saturated as he rises.
You used Midjourney, the full Adobe Suite, and Kling AI. How did these tools shape your creative process?
I am a lover of technology and advancing my craft, so I am always on the lookout for what’s new out there. Midjourney is an incredibly powerful image creation tool, it helped bring my imagination to life with the world. After creating images, they would then have to be animated and I used Kling for that. The process of combining all of these tools was a lot of work. The anti-AI folk out there think it’s a single click effort but this took over 50 hours of work, lots of layering and After Effects work to combine stuff, add overlay elements and so much more, it was a huge undertaking that I honestly didn’t anticipate but am really happy with the final product, I challenged myself. I definitely have a lot to say about the anti-AI movement. There is so much that goes into a short like this. Who is directing it? Who is coming up with the creative ideas? Who is writing it? Who is editing? AI is a tool not the sole creator of something. As you may know, I have done lots of animation in the past, all by hand. This film still utilized the same skills I used before. There are shots here that are pretty much all After Effects, a very tedious program that doesn’t even use AI. Overall, the combination really helped bring my imagination to life and that’s all that matters to me as an artist.
What were the biggest technical challenges in animating the film?
I think it’s obvious, the AI tools are in their infancy. We are a ‘caveman era’ in AI filmmaking. There were many limitations I came across but I understood that and had to workaround a lot of things to try and make it work. I know the results aren’t perfect but that wasn’t the point. I can’t wait to look back at this film in 5 years and see the growth as an artist. I had countless outputs that were 100% unusable, Lumi would go crazy on screen and look warped out; it is a skill in itself to be able to wrangle the AI and have it work in your favor. I’ve seen a lot of what they call “AI slop” and I wanted to make something that didn’t feel like that. I wanted audiences to focus on the story and the emotion of the character. Story will always be first. Stories have been told in so many different forms, AI is just another and it will only get better in time.
Emotion seems to be a core element of the film. What message or feeling do you want the audience to take away?
I want them to feel what Lumi felt, we all live in the same world and growing up we try to find where we fit in, what makes us happy. We all have goals, we all want to have friends and feel welcomed; this story reflects that desire in Lumi. The movie poster says ‘find your light’ and that message is for everyone, this isn’t a kiddy film, I believe any age can relate. That’s something I’ve always set out to capture in my work.
What was the most rewarding part of making this short?
Sticking with it! You wouldn’t believe how many bad outputs I had to go through, even in it’s near final form, I learned some new workarounds to make the character more consistent, I ended up redoing 70% of the characters shots in the final day of production. Previously, those shots took me 20+ hours to do and a lot of money. Working out ways to bring my ideas to life is so rewarding. I have an even bigger film I have been working on that is over 10 minutes long, it’s epic. Everything I learned here with “Surface” is going to help me now jumping back into production of this new film and I can’t wait to share!
