The task
Make an AI version of a popular blogger: not a picture with a voice on top, but a character who sits in an armchair, talks to the camera, gestures and holds attention for 26 seconds. 9:16 for Shorts and Reels. No shoot at all: the face, the room, the voice and the movement are generated.
Why, and what the idea was
An avatar that just moves its lips against a static background gives itself away in the first second. We wanted the character to live in the frame: sit relaxed, lean in, show things with his hands, look you in the eye. So the scene is not a studio but a bright living room with windows, a plant and an armchair, and the entry into the frame goes through an empty room and a flash on the hoodie, so the first second works as a hook.
How it went
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 | The character’s portrait in Nano Banana: a young man, dark curly hair, black hoodie, a chain |
| Stage 2 | The scene: an armchair in a bright living room, windows, a plant. Entry into the frame through an empty room and a fiery flash |
| Stage 3 | Voice in ElevenLabs, speech and gesture animation to the finished track |
| Stage 4 | Edit: the Instagram profile screen inserted at the ninth second, delivery at 26 seconds |
Tools and method
Portrait: Nano Banana. Voice: ElevenLabs. Animation: Seedance. A detailed log of this job did not survive, so here is only what is visible in the video and the rules we make avatars by now.
The face reference is one clean image: the head up close, no shoulders, no background. No words about race or skin color in the text; the face comes from the photo only. The voice script is written with emotion tags and pauses so the lines do not run in a flat row, while the lip-sync tool gets clean text without tags.
Result
The video is 26 seconds, 9:16, one shot. 0-2 s: an empty living room, a desk with a computer. 2-4 s: the character appears in the armchair, fiery lines flare up on the hoodie and fade. 4-26 s: a monologue to the camera, hands in the frame the whole time; at the ninth second he points at an inserted Instagram profile screen.
Mistakes and what we took from them
