# RatKid and the Red Balloon

> A rat-boy aristocrat chases his runaway red balloon down a city built up the walls of a waterfall gorge.

URL: https://arc.katechon.technology/films/ratkid-and-the-red-balloon
Updated: 2026-10-17

[Watch "He Chased His Balloon Through a Sky City | RatKid and the Red Balloon | Fantasy Short Film" on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_KV4ym_Nqk)

## The story

On festival morning in Elvira, a city stacked up the walls of a waterfall gorge, RatKid loses his red balloon off the palace balcony at the top of the city and goes over the edge after it: down the neck of a giant Longneck, through the market tiers and across a laundry line twenty storeys up, onto a theatre skyship mid-play, down the Great Falls, and back up to the tip of the Bell Spire at sunset.

### Chapters

1. The Crown Terrace
2. The Market Tiers
3. The Gilded Lark
4. The Great Falls
5. The Bell Spire

## How it was made with Katechon Arc

1. Wrote a world bible and five chapter shot lists, with the brief to introduce the city rather than a hero and to show, not tell.
2. Built character and set sheets in Arc, then generated shots chapter by chapter from the confirmed scripts.
3. Switched video providers mid-production as balances ran out; the project kept the same references, so the cast held across providers.
4. Added a narrator, an animated cross-section map between chapters and chapter cards, and mixed to -14 LUFS outside Arc.

## Production facts

RatKid and the Red Balloon: production facts:

|  | RatKid and the Red Balloon |
| --- | --- |
| Project type | Drama project, reference-video mode, 16:9 |
| Structure | 5 chapters, one per level of the city |
| Video models | Seedance 2.0 at 720p (19 shots), Seedance 2.0 Mini (5), Seedance 2.0 through a second provider (22, partly at 480p and upscaled); 17 final shots were rendered on Seedance 2.0 outside Arc when provider balances ran out |
| Image model | Seedream 5.0 Lite for character and set sheets |
| Voice | ElevenLabs narrator, 20 lines placed on dialogue-free shots |
| Runtime | 9:44 (1280x720, 24 fps, English captions) |

## What we learned

- A style rule like "the red balloon is the only red" leaked into the sheets: the image model painted balloons into eight set sheets. Phrasing it as "no red in sets or wardrobe" and adding "empty plate, no balloons" to set descriptions fixed it.
- Which provider renders a queued shot is decided when it is dispatched, so changing the project's video model also changes shots that are already queued.

## Watch

RatKid and the Red Balloon (9:44) is free to watch on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_KV4ym_Nqk) on the Katechon Studio channel, published 2026-10-04. It was made by the Katechon team with Katechon Arc; editing, music and finishing were done outside Katechon Arc where noted.

## More films made with Arc

- [The Wolf Mother](https://arc.katechon.technology/films/the-wolf-mother): 16:9 feature in 8 chapters, 47:14
- [The Fall of Kalak](https://arc.katechon.technology/films/the-fall-of-kalak): 16:9 feature in 9 episodes, 42:11
- [Blood Sun: The Fall of Kratos](https://arc.katechon.technology/films/blood-sun): 45-episode 9:16 short drama, released as one film, 51:52
- [The Emperor's Pleasure Court](https://arc.katechon.technology/films/the-emperors-pleasure-court): 16:9 extended opening of a vertical series, 6 chapters, 10:22

Make one like it: start from the [AI short drama workflow](https://arc.katechon.technology/use-cases/ai-short-drama-generator) or see [how Arc works](https://arc.katechon.technology/how-it-works).