Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
London, 1940. As sirens echo through the streets and fire consumes the skyline, ordinary people face extraordinary uncertainty. This immersive short film explores the human experience of the Blitz, from on the ground. Not only the destruction, but the resilience, courage, and hope that persisted through the darkness.
More than just a historical moment, The Blitz is a story about endurance, legacy, and the strength to be found when everything feels lost. In a time when the world feels sadly uncertain once again, these stories matter more than ever before.
The images in this film were created with AI, using real archive imagery that was shot at the time. The narrative direction is intended to honour the spirit of the people who lived through the Blitz of 1940 and 1941. Not to mention, the war photographers and filmmakers that put themselves in harms way to capture the original images. Ordinary people, who endured extraordinary things.
Whilst the film is set loosely during the night of 29th December 1940, known as ‘The Second Great Fire of London’, archive images featured are from the entire Blitz period - September 1940 to May 1941. Bar one or two creative additions, the images are based on real photos and film footage shot during the period. I have attempted to be as historically accurate as possible, given the limitations of AI that still exist!
What started as a bit of a visual experiment quickly became a mammoth passion project. At first, I simply wanted to know what it might have felt like being dropped onto those streets with a mobile phone, to capture events as they unfolded. That's the reason for the vertical format! I've always felt that black and white historical photography just seems to create an element of psychological separation between our time and theirs. But as soon as you give the images some modern photorealism and image quality, it's as if you are transported back. So before I knew it, I had something on my hands that I wanted to pursue, as a short film. I realised it needed to be something more than an experiment, and this is the result.
As somebody that has always had a deep fascination with history, I wanted to create something that allows those of us that were not around during the war, to be able to get as close as is possible to seeing, hearing, and feeling what it might have been like during The Blitz. A significant amount of time went into this piece; research, collating archive images, manually prepping every single image, generating viable sequences, cutting it all together, and then building the sound design up from scratch.
Using AI imagery was a new filmmaking experience for me, and I actually have a lot to say on the matter. Like so many of us, I'm still trying to compute what it actually means. Not just as a filmmaking tool, but the bigger picture too. If you’d like to see a BTS showing what went into the creation of this film, let me know in the comments.
Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments! I have a lot of other ideas I would love to explore. Would you like to see more like this?
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© Rowe Films 2026
London, 1940. As sirens echo through the streets and fire consumes the skyline, ordinary people face extraordinary uncertainty. This immersive short film explores the human experience of the Blitz, from on the ground. Not only the destruction, but the resilience, courage, and hope that persisted through the darkness.
More than just a historical moment, The Blitz is a story about endurance, legacy, and the strength to be found when everything feels lost. In a time when the world feels sadly uncertain once again, these stories matter more than ever before.
The images in this film were created with AI, using real archive imagery that was shot at the time. The narrative direction is intended to honour the spirit of the people who lived through the Blitz of 1940 and 1941. Not to mention, the war photographers and filmmakers that put themselves in harms way to capture the original images. Ordinary people, who endured extraordinary things.
Whilst the film is set loosely during the night of 29th December 1940, known as ‘The Second Great Fire of London’, archive images featured are from the entire Blitz period - September 1940 to May 1941. Bar one or two creative additions, the images are based on real photos and film footage shot during the period. I have attempted to be as historically accurate as possible, given the limitations of AI that still exist!
What started as a bit of a visual experiment quickly became a mammoth passion project. At first, I simply wanted to know what it might have felt like being dropped onto those streets with a mobile phone, to capture events as they unfolded. That's the reason for the vertical format! I've always felt that black and white historical photography just seems to create an element of psychological separation between our time and theirs. But as soon as you give the images some modern photorealism and image quality, it's as if you are transported back. So before I knew it, I had something on my hands that I wanted to pursue, as a short film. I realised it needed to be something more than an experiment, and this is the result.
As somebody that has always had a deep fascination with history, I wanted to create something that allows those of us that were not around during the war, to be able to get as close as is possible to seeing, hearing, and feeling what it might have been like during The Blitz. A significant amount of time went into this piece; research, collating archive images, manually prepping every single image, generating viable sequences, cutting it all together, and then building the sound design up from scratch.
Using AI imagery was a new filmmaking experience for me, and I actually have a lot to say on the matter. Like so many of us, I'm still trying to compute what it actually means. Not just as a filmmaking tool, but the bigger picture too. If you’d like to see a BTS showing what went into the creation of this film, let me know in the comments.
Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments! I have a lot of other ideas I would love to explore. Would you like to see more like this?
Tommy Rowe is a proud Musicbed Ambassador. Take your films to the next level with music from Musicbed. Sign up for a free account to listen for yourself: fm.pxf.io/c/3556316/1347628/16252
Follow:
Store: https://rowe-films.sellfy.store
YT: youtube.com/@RoweFilms
IG: instagram.com/rowefilms
FB: facebook.com/rowefilms
V: vimeo.com/rowefilms
W: rowefilms.com
© Rowe Films 2026
