goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
When we made Lightning Bolt, the music video about future-president Porfirio Diaz and his role at the Battle of Puebla, Sonauto provided what I'd call a rocking tune.
I decided to try again, looking for something more appropriate for the period. Same lyrics.
Making the Music
Gemini suggesting trying this prompt for musical style:
Mexico, 19th Century, Cinematic, Anthemic, Military, High-Energy, Orchestral Strings, Heavy Staccato Drums, Powerful Male Vocals, Epic, 150 BPM
In its mysterious way, Sonauto chose to boil this down to one tag: 2020s. (I have no idea why!)
As usual, I had Sonauto generate multiple versions (the AI will generally let you have six concurrent songs-in-progress based on three requests), and it came up with this song which I liked. Not quite what I was looking for, still rocking, but good.
Historical Notes
I was talking today with a friend of mine, who is also a Diaz, and he reminded me that Diaz is a very common surname in the Spanish-influenced world. So I looked it up.
Diaz (commonly spelled Díaz in Spanish) simply means 'son of Diego'. And Diego or Diaz was an incredibly popular name in the Middle Ages, including El Cid (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar).
Porfirio Diaz's full name is José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori. He was born in what was then known as Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico (now known as Oaxaca de Juárez). His father was Criollo (meaning mostly Spanish ancestry) and his mother was Mestizo (mixed native and Spanish ancestry).
His father died when he was only three years old. Encouraged by his mother, he studied for the priesthood (one of the few pathways out of poverty available to him). However, feeling an affinity for the Liberal cause, he switched to studying law.
When Santa Anna cracked down on the Liberals, Diaz fled and joined the guerillas, contributing to the downfall of the dictator (1855). When the civil war known as the Reform War erupted, Diaz again took up arms, rising to brigadier general by the age of 30 due to his tactical brilliance.
This brought him to Puebla on Cinco de Mayo.
Making the Video
I thought it would be less confusing if I had different art for this new version, so I fed the lyrics again to Nano Banana.
I thought that looked too modern, so I asked Flux Klein to make it look more 19th Century:
Caption files were created for English, French, German, Spanish and Tagalog.
The final step was to combine the new music and art with titles, using ClipChamp:
I've posted the video as a reel on the TMP Facebook page. I don't know if it's the art or the tune, but it has not been as popular as the original version.