Time Jump: JM Balbuena Is Taking The Green Renaissance Through Time
What do you do when writing the book isn’t enough? If you’re JM Balbuena, you turn yourself into an animated character and travel through time. The author and filmmaker behind The Green Renaissance is expanding her exploration of cannabis history with an AI-animated series that takes viewers from ancient civilizations through the beginning of prohibition.
The Green Renaissance started with something far more personal. A military veteran, Balbuena began using cannabis after an accident left her dealing with lingering issues, including trouble sleeping. Growing up in a Christian household where cannabis was still viewed as gateway-drug, she started researching the plant partly so she could explain her consumption to her family. “I kind of wanted to write a manual for the advocate,” she told CashColorCannabis. That research eventually grew into a five-year project and the publication of The Green Renaissance in 2024.
Now she’s finding new ways to bring that research to life. While recovering from surgery and unable to put weight on her leg for two months, Balbuena taught herself to use AI to animate the book’s cover. That experiment grew into a six-episode series featuring an animated version of JM traveling through ancient China, India, and Egypt; the colonization of the Americas; Mexico; and the jazz era. Creating the episodes meant learning AI’s limitations along the way, including generating scenes in short segments and editing them together to maintain some consistency.
The book is also getting a soundtrack. Balbuena partnered with artist Lizzy Jeff to create The Green Renaissance Sessions, a musical companion intentionally sequenced to tell its own story. “For me, my forte is the writing and the storytelling,” Balbuena said of working with Jeff. “When you bring those two minds together… imagine what you can build together.”
What began as Balbuena searching for answers about her own cannabis use spawned into a book, audiobook, animated series, and musical collaboration. The Green Renaissance may already be published, but JM Balbuena clearly isn’t finished telling the story.
