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Rick Steeby · AI book trailer

MUSE Creative Awards 2026, Gold, Video: Trailers

Gold Miner's Daughter

Cold justice on the last frontier. A trailer for Rick Steeby's novel.

The full 1:00 trailer.

The big question

How do you put 1960 Alaska on screen in sixty seconds, without a camera?

Client

Rick Steeby

Format

AI book trailer

Runtime

1:00

Recognition

MUSE Creative Awards 2026
Gold, Video: Trailers

What we did

Concept
Direction
AI generation
Edit
Sound design

The ask

A headshot client kept telling us stories. We asked to film one without a camera.

Rick Steeby's Gold Miner's Daughter: 1960, Chicken, Alaska. Neither of us knew how it would turn out.

The problem

There was no map.

AI video was in its infancy. The look took trial and error, and almost no one was doing this work yet to learn from.

The move

Board it. Generate it. Direct every frame.

Storyboards first, stills generated to match, then turned into video. AI made the pictures. People made every decision.

Rick Steeby and Anfon Ha, where it started

Tents and trucks at a mining camp below a cut bank — Chicken, Alaska

A woman with a rifle in front of the town — The town

Wyatt Peoples in a cowboy hat, a wooden house behind him — Wyatt Peoples

Peoples studying something through a magnifying glass — The gold

Ravens circle a body in the snow, seen from above — The body

Two men stand over a body in the snow, seen from the body's point of view — The discovery

A couple by a campfire at dusk beside an old school bus — The campfire

Amy running down a dirt road at night — Amy

A 1950s patrol car kicking up dust below the mountains — The patrol car

The sheriff at the wheel — The sheriff

The sheriff firing a shotgun in the forest — The shotgun

The sheriff walking down the main street of town — Main street

A cowboy firing a pistol from behind a fallen tree in the snow — The showdown

Pencil storyboard: a face, a cigarette and a bullet — Drawn board

A bearded man, eyes closed, a cigarette in his lips and a bullet flying past — Final frame

Board to shot

A sheriff's badge on a denim shirt — Final shot

The payoff

Gold.

“None of this was filmed?”Friends, on first watch

MUSE Creative Awards 2026, Gold Winner in Video: Trailers. Over 5,000 entries, judged blind by 94 jurors from 22 countries. Our first full AI video production.

“I am so blown away in what Anfon created for my book.”Rick Steeby, author

Gold MUSE Creative Awards statuette

Deliverables

1:00 book trailer.

Credits

Directed by Anfon Ha
Client Rick Steeby
Production Aha! Concepts
Thanks Rourke Sefton-Minns, GenHQ

What are you making? Who needs to see it?

A few lines is plenty. You will hear back from a person.

[email protected]

Based in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. Crew nationwide.