[Honest] How I Produced a Hot Air Balloon Experience PR Short for 38,000 Yen a Month Using AI Video Generation
What changed after working with AI—it’s that I never expected a hot air balloon operating company to reach out to me, a retail store manager, for a PR video. I will honestly disclose the true story of how I accepted and produced a hot air balloon AI video generation PR project for 38,000 yen a month by combining Sora 2 and Midjourney v7, including the breakdown of the costs.
Honestly, the moment the request came in, I did a double-take, thinking, “Wait, me?” I’m a manager of a store that sells general goods and stationery. The only things I’ve ever handled that fly are the carts I use to move store inventory… No, I’ll admit it honestly. At first, I completely underestimated it. I thought, “I can just whip up a video with AI in no time.”
In conclusion, I was naive. But since it ended up generating 38,000 yen in revenue and even led to a second request, I’m going to write about the whole process, including both the good and the bad.
Conclusion first: The breakdown of the 38,000 yen and the actual time spent on production
I’ll put the numbers out first. This project totaled 38,000 yen, consisting of 10,000 yen for planning and composition, 20,000 yen for video generation and material production, and 8,000 yen for subtitle editing and delivery adjustments. The actual working time, including meetings, was about 14 hours, and the period from the initial inquiry to delivery was effectively three weeks.
What you will learn in this article
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How I combined Sora 2, Midjourney v7, and Claude Opus 4.7 to create the hot air balloon PR short
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Why I settled on this combination of three tools (with a comparison table)
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Actual examples of the prompts I used
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The breakdown of the 38,000 yen and my honest thoughts when converted to an hourly wage
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Three failure stories that almost led to a complaint
An overview of the project in a table first
| Item | Details |
| — | — |
| Client | Hot air balloon experience operating company in Hyogo Prefecture (pseudonym: Sora Tabi Balloon) |
| Request | PR short videos for boarding experience (15 seconds x 2, 30 seconds x 1) |
| Production Fee | 38,000 yen |
| Production Period | 21 days from inquiry to delivery (14 hours of actual work) |
| Tools Used | Sora 2 / Midjourney v7 / Claude Opus 4.7 / Vrew |
Some of you might think, “Wait, that’s it?” at this point. I thought so too at first. But when I actually started working, there were about three times as many fine adjustments as I had imagined. I will write about that honestly in the second half.
Why did a retail store manager like me get a request for a hot air balloon PR video?
To put it simply, the trigger was that an acquaintance found the AI-generated flyer videos I was posting daily on the store’s Instagram and introduced me. It wasn’t because I had flashy achievements, but just through word of mouth that “that manager seems good at making videos with AI.”
The trigger was an Instagram post
In early August 2026, I created and posted a 15-second short video using Sora 2 to promote my shop’s autumn stationery fair. It was a shot where the camera gently moves across notebooks and pens lined up on a shelf. The response was decent, and I remember the number of saves being about 1.6 times higher than usual.
It seems the husband of a colleague at my wife’s workplace happened to see that post. He happened to be an acquaintance of a hot air balloon experience operator and, having heard they were looking for someone who could produce videos cheaply using AI, he brought the offer to me. …Truly, you never know where human connections will lead.
The anxiety I felt at the first inquiry message
To be honest, when I saw the first message, I thought, ‘Shouldn’t I turn this down?’ I’ve never even ridden in a hot air balloon, and I have zero knowledge of aerial photography. I had made videos for my shop’s work, but only at the level of introducing products inside the store. I had absolutely no experience in PR for outdoor, let alone flying, vehicles.
However, this hot air balloon experience operator didn’t have a very large budget, and they said, ‘It costs over 200,000 yen to hire a professional drone aerial photography company. We want a short video that can be posted on social media with a more realistic budget.’ I thought my knowledge of AI video generation that I had been testing might be useful, so I decided to at least provide a quote. I remember secretly opening my laptop after the kids were asleep late at night to organize the conditions.
☕ What you will learn in the rest of this article
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How I decided which AI tools to use (with a comparison table)
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└ Reasons why I was torn between Sora 2, Midjourney v7, and Runway
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└ The combination I ultimately chose
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The actual 6-step production flow (with real prompt examples)
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└ Steps 1-2: Hearing and script design
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└ Steps 3-4: Material generation with Sora 2 and Midjourney v7
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└ Steps 5-6: Editing, delivery, and revision handling
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The breakdown of the 38,000 yen and an honest calculation of tool subscription costs
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└ Actual figures for revenue and expenses
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└ Honestly, how was it when converted to an hourly wage?
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3 failure stories where I stumbled
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└ The problem of faces changing every time they are generated
👇 You can read the rest here (498 yen)
