Cloaked: Three Pages In, a Pilot Out — in 2 Hours
Cloaked is an occult thriller from screenwriter Tonia Kempler: Dan Brown with a dash of Harry Dresden. An adjunct professor discovers he's destined to battle occult forces fueled by the Book of the Dead, all while clearing his name in a string of murders.
At a glance
| Project | Cloaked Vol 1: The Book of the Dead, an occult thriller comic |
|---|---|
| Creator | Tonia Kempler, screenwriter and producer (art by Norbert Yates; rights held by Kempler) |
| Source material | The first 3 pages of the published comic |
| Deliverable | Animated pilot |
| Runtime | 1 minute 13 seconds |
| Turnaround | 48 hours of planning. 2 hours of generation to final product |
| Fidelity | Animated to match the original art, beat for beat |
| Ownership | 100% kept by the creator. CurtainCall holds no rights |
The brief: a storyteller who knows what screen-ready looks like
Tonia Kempler isn't only a comic creator. She's a produced screenwriter with award-winning shorts and festival placements behind her, someone who evaluates visual storytelling for a living. When a customer like that hands you her book, the bar isn't "looks good for AI." It's "reads like the story I wrote, beat for beat."
Cloaked also brought a new problem to the table. Our first two case studies were a sci-fi epic built from concept art and a fantasy adventure animated from a full published book. Cloaked is an occult thriller, and thrillers live or die on pacing: the held breath before a reveal, the cut that lands a scare. Getting the art right wasn't enough. The animation had to hit the story beats the way the pages do.
The approach: three pages, treated like a script
We took the first three pages of Cloaked and treated them the way a director treats a script: breaking down the panels into beats, planning the shots, then locking the look to Norbert Yates' art with Geometry Lock, our process for holding character identity steady across every frame.
The split tells the story: 48 hours of planning, 2 hours of generation. Most of the work was the thinking. Shot structure, pacing, staying true to the page. Once the plan was locked and Tonia signed off, the pilot itself generated in a couple of hours. That's the shape of how we work: deliberation up front, speed where it counts.
The result: the beats, alive
The finished 73-second pilot came back faithful to the art and, more importantly for a thriller, faithful to the rhythm of the story. Tonia keeps 100% of it. And her reaction is the part we can't say better ourselves:
"We loved the process and we want to see how our other comics turn out! It was amazing to see the beats come to life and have our art be faithfully represented." Tonia Kempler, creator, Cloaked
Read that first sentence again. Not "we're satisfied." We want to see how our other comics turn out. That's what a pilot is for. It's the proof that makes the next book an easy decision.
Panel to frame
The fidelity claim is checkable. One panel from each of the three pages, next to the frame the engine generated for that beat. Norbert Yates' linework on the left, the pilot on the right.
Why it matters
Three pages was all it took. Not a finished season's worth of material, not a style bible, not a six-month commitment. Three pages in, a 73-second pilot out, two hours of generation. That's enough for a creator to see exactly what her book looks like in motion before betting anything bigger.
Jancroon proved we can build a world from concept art. Sulver's Journey proved we can keep a published book whole. Cloaked proves how little it takes to find out: a few pages, a couple of days, and you're watching your story move.
Want to see your first pages in motion?
Book a scoping call and walk away with a quote and a delivery date. Three pages is enough to start.
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