"Nobody's actually managed to capture [the spider and frog] on film in the wild, to my knowledge, so I thought that was a really great reason to use AI specifically," she says.
"I can show the detail of the relationship, I can get into the spider's burrow … and then recreate that in AI, but put it in a natural environment, so that it feels and looks like a real nature documentary."
Heenan researched production techniques from National Geographic, Animal Planet, and David Attenborough's teams, intentionally avoiding obvious digital effects.
"No fancy camera tricks and morphs and warps, none of the fun stuff that AI can do that looks really cool," she says.
"I almost wanted it be: you're in boring hotel room, you put on Nat Geo because there's nothing else on the TV, and you get sucked in."
Other Winners and Industry Impact
The Omni festival recognized creative AI filmmakers from multiple countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Ukraine, China, and Australia.
Canadian creator Robert Gaudette won the best picture award for his eight-minute film A Face Only a Mother Could Love.
Gaudette's film also recently secured a $50,000 grand prix at the Runway AI film festival hosted at New York's Lincoln Center.
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"I knew what type of story I wanted to tell, and I knew I wanted it to be different from what a lot of other people were doing in AI," Gaudette tells The Guardian from his home in Toronto.
