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Waking Up With MLB "Breakfast Club"

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Hauling baseball scarecrows, midnight huddles, and building a cinematic tribute at magic hour. A BTS look at the making of MLB’s Opening Day commercial in Japan.

For one week, we chased baseball across Japan.

It was a dream production between Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo, MLB, the Fridman Sisters, Stink, and more. We all committed to a simple vision, and burned daylight at both ends (as well as through the night), to pay tribute to the ritual of fans watching early morning baseball in Japan.

What resulted was a deeply textured and authentic love letter to the fans who have been there. The ones who set their alarms before the Ohtani’s and the current generation arrived on the scene. It was also a warm invitation for all fans to rise up and enjoy the poetry and momentum that is MLB in this era.

Here is the resulting Opening Day commercial, “Breakfast Club.”

As we shuttled around Japan, I kept my iPhone and Canon busy documenting the journey. Capturing moments between takes and making sure I had all the memories of this monumental and epic team effort.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Two Commercials I Directed Are Heading to Cannes

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My Luma Dream Brief entries “Luma Taxi” and “Luma Suds” are moving forward as real ads and official Cannes contenders.

I got a fun email this morning.

Two commercials I wrote and directed for the Luma Dream Brief have been selected to run as paid ads, and will officially be entered into the 2026 Cannes Lions. From here, any of the selected ads that win a coveted Gold Lion will split a share of a $1,000,000 prize pot.

The past year has been a grind and a blur in the AI film space. What started as a curiosity quickly gathered momentum. 2026 has seen one of my AI-commercials run on ESPN, and now two more are official ads for Luma AI, and heading to Cannes.

Anyway, here are my spots for Luma, now running as paid ads.

The first, Luma Taxi, takes us to the town of Luma where the horses have gone on strike and autonomous vehicles help the Old West mayhem go without a hitch.

And Luma Suds, the generational yakuza epic meets laundry detergent commercial of my wildest dreams.

Under the Hood: The Hybrid Workflow

For both commercials, I used a hybrid workflow I’ve been developing over the past year. AI filmmaking leverages powerful technology, but the best examples I’ve seen are far from the “just push a button” meme you see in your feeds. There is still a lot of room for human authorship and decisions to be made. Here is how these films were built:

  • Writing as Storyboarding: It starts with rough notes and outlining, which then turn into a draft of a script. I usually start storyboarding at this phase, but I like to do it in writing. I’ll write out dense descriptions of the scenes and moments I have in my head, which naturally evolve into the core prompts.

  • Generating the Blocks: Next, I start generating the key sequences. The prompting and results can still be like rolling a pair of dice, so a lot of re-rolling is involved.

  • The Edit: Once I have the basic building blocks, I drop the clips into Final Cut Pro. From there, I start pulling selects and getting the spine of the story into a rough edit. It’s a lot of back-and-forth with the Luma model to fill in the holes and perfect key moments.

  • Setting the Tone: Early on, I go into Suno AI (a generative music model) to start playing around with the tone of the score. I like to get music on the timeline to edit against. Even if it’s rough, I can always switch it out later with a more crafted version.

  • Voice & Character: For the Luma Taxi spot, I created an original AI narrator in ElevenLabs. It had to be gravelly and period-accurate, a voice with enough authority to make even the absurd sound like a black-and-white legend. I was pleased with how it fit the genre and tone I was going for.

I sat with both edits for a couple of weeks, watching them through and making little tweaks to the timing as I lived with them.

With generative AI, there are always moments you wish turned out differently, or frames you wish matched the exact, specific vision in your head. But like any traditional commercial set with a hard deadline, at some point, you have to let go and put it out there.

I’m excited to have the spots out there and running as real ads. It’s all so surreal, and I already have a number of upcoming projects in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

New Work: Evil Has Always Had A Name

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A live-action short film for the launch of Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem.

I didn’t have writing a Resident Evil prequel short film and campaign line on my bingo card. But when it comes to writing long-form cinematic content, count me in.

Massive shout-out to Lucas McClain, Jonathan Marques, and Nomadic Agency for bringing “Evil Has Always Had a Name” to life in such a powerful and filmic way. 🧟‍♀️ 🍿 🔥

Directed by Rich Lee. Starring Maika Monroe.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

My First AI-Directed Commercial Just Aired on ESPN

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From prompt to national broadcast: Teaming up with ONLYCH1LD to bring Proofpoint AI to life.

Here’s a fun one.

I just directed my first AI commercial to air on broadcast television. No set. No crew. No craft services. Just a brief, a core of smart creatives, and the tools to make it real.

This comes on the heels of CDing a very beautiful, and traditionally crafted spot for MLB Japan, shot on location in Tokyo with the Fridman Sisters and Stink. If I had my choice and an unlimited budget, I would make films the old-school way every time.

Welcome to 2026. With one foot planted in the traditions of film craft, and the other under the desk in my AI-powered portable studio, I bring what I’ve learned from nearly 20 years of experience in advertising to this new frontier.

My early AI experiments, like my original AI sports comedy series, Deadball Academy, have brought me a series of interesting meetings. One with the San Francisco-based production company ONLYCH1LD.

It was from these talks that the opportunity to direct my first broadcast AI commercial popped up. The timeline was aggressive and the plan ambitious. But with ONLYCH1LD as steady, experienced, and enthusiastic partners, we took the plunge and immediately started production on a spot for Proofpoint, a leading cybersecurity company in Silicon Valley.

The vision for the spot was chaotic, comedic, and a little bit unhinged. An AI CEO walks calmly through an office under siege while Proofpoint’s agents extinguish fires, stop robbers, and prevent data theft, all with the energy of a Saturday morning cartoon directed by someone who grew up on Tony Scott.

Working with the team at ONLYCH1LD, the creative came together in a matter of weeks; a timeline that would have been impossible in traditional production. AI didn’t replace the creative process. It compressed it. The brief still needed a point of view. The script still needed a voice. And putting it together required a lot of human conversation.

After spending a couple of weeks “directing” the AI-actor, I had grown a little attached to that cluster of pixels. I even gave him a name: CLIFF DATAMAN. One thing led to another, and soon I had a full-on behind-the-scenes blooper reel, profiling Cliff Dataman’s “on-set” antics.

As I said, things got a little unhinged.

Via Ads of the World — Part of the Clio Network, March 2026:

ONLYCH1LD brings cybersecurity to life in its latest campaign for Proofpoint, turning an office under attack into a chaotic, comedic AI-powered spectacle. The fully AI-driven spot blends absurd humor with bold visual storytelling, showcasing how Proofpoint protects people, data and brands against cyberattacks.

“ONLYCH1LD has been a trusted creative partner for us, and they quickly understood the need to deliver something memorable that balanced humor with clear messaging,” shares Proofpoint CMO Joyce Kim. “Their team proposed a fast, intentionally over the top AI approach that allowed us to move quickly while still creating a bold piece that stands out.”

The campaign came together in just a few weeks following a marketing pivot by Proofpoint’s new CMO, who turned to ONLYCH1LD to reimagine messaging and tone. The :30 broadcast spot, currently airing on ESPN, features an AI CEO casually walking through a chaotic office while Proofpoint’s AI agents prevent data theft, extinguish fires and stop robbers in their tracks. ONLYCH1LD also produced a blooper reel and short clips for social media, giving audiences a look behind the scenes and amplifying the campaign’s absurd, cinematic humor.

“It’s funny, because I wasn’t really ‘on set,’ given a computer made this commercial. But had I been, I would’ve been thrilled with the commitment!” concludes ONLYCH1LD’s ECD Samuel Miller. “In reality, there was no reason to play it safe given the timeline and desire for memorability. We decided to go a bit over the top — or, as Oyl said, ‘bombastic.’ Oyl gave us the freedom to do that while still staying grounded in Proofpoint’s message. It ended up being this fun, controlled chaos — while still fully on brand. And kind of weirdly authentic in its humor.”

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Luma Dream Brief Entry - Luma Taxi Commercial "Ride On"

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For the last four years, I’ve spent my days wandering the Arizona desert, staring at the vast, empty horizon and dreaming of things that simply couldn’t exist.

In my head, it was always a collision of future-forward tech and the grit of the Old West. But in the agency world, those ideas usually die a slow, silent death. They get pushed aside by “logic,” budget spreadsheets, or that one tuned-out, nasally voice in the corner of the conference room asking, “But whyyyyyyyyy?”

Logic is a dream-killer.

But then the Luma Dream Brief gave me a preemptive green light and a license to dream. No pitch decks. No “safety” edits. Just a raw workflow and the tools to finally build the thing I’ve been seeing in the heat haze:

A frontier town in the Wild West, where the horses have gone on strike, and the cowboys are fighting for their lives on bucking autonomous vehicles.

This is Luma Taxi. In an alternate timeline of approvals, it’s a Super Bowl ad. In our reality, it’s a dual launch on Substack and LinkedIn.

In the spirit of Luma Taxi, Ride on.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.