Press resources
The overview, production notes, bios, and a downloadable press kit are available below.
PRESS RELEASE / OVERVIEW
Aztec Revolt reaches Higgsfield Global Film Festival Shortlist
Filmmakers Will Brown and David Hales created Aztec Revolt: Escaping Tenochtitlán, a 22-minute historical film that has reached the Higgsfield Global Film Festival Shortlist of 50 films out of more than 6,000 films. The film is a proof of concept for a premium multi-season historical drama exploring the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
The short explores how emerging production technology can help professional storytellers approach the scale of historical epics while retaining the discipline of screenplay, shot planning, editing, compositing, color and sound. Brown and Hales are seeking conversations about developing the larger series with studios, streaming platforms, producers, financiers and representation.
Media contact: contact@conquistadorseries.com
FILM IMAGERY / GALLERY
High-resolution stills
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THE CREATORS
Will Brown & David Hales
Will Brown
Will Brown is a former teacher, historical researcher and creator of Incredible History, reaching approximately 950,000 combined followers and subscribers across YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. His historical storytelling has reached tens of millions of viewers and generated hundreds of millions of views. Brown has researched and produced content covering the Aztec Empire, Spanish conquest, Mesoamerican history and the broader history of the Americas. He also teaches AI filmmaking through his online filmmaking community on Skool.
David Hales
David Hales studied filmmaking at Brigham Young University and brings experience in traditional film and television production. His credits include producing and editing the theatrically released feature The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1: The Journey and serving as co-executive producer of Zeros, a half-hour television project developed with Syfy. His experience includes producing, editing, building crews, developing projects, working with live actors and traditional pre-production, production and post-production workflows.
BEHIND THE FILM
Production notes
Aztec Revolt: Escaping Tenochtitlán
Filmmaking First
Brown and Hales approached Aztec Revolt using a conventional narrative filmmaking process: idea, treatment, screenplay, breakdown, planning, production, editing and sound. The generative tools changed how individual assets and performances were created, not the need for human authorship, direction and editorial judgment.
A Deliberately Difficult Test
The film was designed around elements that remain technically difficult for current generative systems: a vanished city, enormous crowds, armies, multiple languages, rain, mist, nighttime scenes, water, complex physical action and large-scale combat. When the technology could not deliver a moment convincingly, the filmmakers changed coverage, redesigned the shot, edited around the limitation or used sound to carry the scene.
Festival Constraints
Making the film was especially challenging because, under Higgsfield Global Film Festival rules, all AI-generated imagery, video, dialogue, voices, music and sound effects had to be created using AI within the Higgsfield ecosystem during the official generation window. Conventional editing, compositing, grading, mixing and other non-generative post-production were allowed. Brown and Hales completed the approximately 22-minute film in just under four weeks.
Hybrid Production, Not All-AI Production
The festival’s all-AI constraints were well suited to its purpose: to challenge filmmakers to push emerging tools as far as possible and demonstrate what they can accomplish in the hands of experienced filmmakers. Requiring imagery, video, performances and audio to be generated within a defined AI ecosystem created a useful test of the technology’s current limits.
Brown and Hales do not, however, see that as the ideal workflow for professional film and television production. They believe far more can be accomplished through a hybrid approach, combining real actors, real cameras and conventional creative departments with generative technology where it offers a clear advantage. In that model, AI becomes another filmmaking tool rather than a replacement for the filmmaking process.
The larger opportunity is economic as much as creative. Hybrid AI production can help studios stretch budgets further, reduce financial risk, shorten certain production and post-production workflows, and make ambitious stories more practical to greenlight. If productions require less time and money to achieve the same or greater scale, the result could be not simply cheaper films, but more films and television series being made.
Language
The festival version is performed in Spanish and Nahuatl, with an English-and-Nahuatl version in development. The goal is not conventional dubbing, but separate language performances whose voices, delivery and lip movement belong naturally to that version.
PRESS / INTERVIEWS / MATERIALS
Media contact
For interviews, official stills, a press kit or further background on the film and series: