If you’re like the majority of people, you watch videos every day. They may be on social media, YouTube, a streaming service, or even as part of your job or education. Video is the dominant form of new content, and it’s only becoming more prevalent as businesses incorporate it into various use cases that were formerly the domain of meetings or seminars.
Parallel with the growing popularity of video is the rapid rise of generative AI video technology, such as AI video generators and deepfakes. Put together, the two trends open the door to an intriguing proposition: What if you wanted to create a video starring your favorite movie character?
Using today’s technology, creating a video starring your favorite movie character is not only possible but shockingly simple. But like any Hollywood movie, the first question you must answer is: Is there an audience for this production? A recent worldwide survey showed that, on average, respondents watched nineteen hours of online videos per week. Audience? Check.
Because of copyright and IP laws, you wouldn’t be able to make a publicly viewable, for-profit video starring a favorite movie character, so you’d be making a video for internal corporate uses such as HR, employee training, or presentations. That means the next question you’d want to answer is: Is there a demand for these kinds of videos? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Research indicates that 79% of employees believe using video would improve their business, and 48% think video is the most engaging way to communicate.
So whether you’d like your next quarterly sales report video delivered by Captain Marvel or a new employee onboarding hosted by Michael Corleone, this post is for you. Follow along as we learn why and how to create a video with your favorite movie character using the latest AI tools.
Why create a video with your favorite movie character?
At the end of the day, the reality is that only a tiny percentage of people in the entire world —and even within “The Industry”—get to direct famous actors in movies and television shows. Creating an AI version of that person’s character will be as close as most of us ever get. But that’s not the best or only reason you’d want to create a video with your favorite movie character.
While your CFO Fred may be the person in your company best qualified to deliver the year-end financials, chances are good that he won’t be the best video presenter. But if Adonis Creed delivers the report, you can bet people will pay attention. Why? It’s a little neural magic called The Celebrity Effect.
In essence, the human brain doesn’t do a great job differentiating between real and make-believe, so fictional characters become familiar to us in the same way that friends and colleagues do. When we see an endorsement or video featuring a famous but familiar character or celebrity, our brains respond with the same excitement and trust as if we actually knew the person.
What does this mean for corporate videos presented by your favorite movie characters? The videos become instantly more engaging and more memorable. The message is more likely to be trusted and embraced by the viewer. That’s why big brands use celebrity endorsements, which are proven to increase sales by 4% over the competition.
The Benefits of Creating a Video with Your Favorite Movie Character
Creating a corporate video featuring your favorite movie character has benefits across any of its potential use cases. These include:
- Saves Time and Money – Of course, you’re saving money by not booking an actual celebrity to do the video, but consider the previous example. Why take Fred the CFO away from his duties to do a presentation when it can be done by an AI-generated video starring an AI-generated avatar of a favorite movie character, created in minutes at a fraction of the cost of a typical video production?
- Increased Effectiveness – Studies of elearning and employee training have shown that video is a preferred medium and that the information presented is more readily retained. Add the power of The Celebrity Effect, and you have a recipe for videos with virtual presenters that score high on engagement and effectiveness.
- Scalable Production – Once you’ve set up an avatar of a favorite movie character in an AI video generator, it takes only the press of a few buttons to create different versions in alternate languages or other use cases. Creating video content at scale was never easier.
How can you create a video with your favorite movie character?
Thanks to the latest Generative AI tools, the ability to create a corporate video featuring your favorite movie character is available to everyone, whether your tastes run from Minions to Dominic Toretto to Princess Leia.
These powerful—and easy-to-use—machine learning models employ algorithms to generate a variety of content, including text, images, video, computer code, audio, and video. For our purposes, we’re going to consider the following AI tools to create a video:
- AI Video Generators (in this case, we’ll use Hour One)
- NLP Tools/AI Chatbots
- Text-to-Video
- AI Video Editors
Ready to get started? It’s time for lights, camera, and action!
5 Steps to Create a Video with Your Favorite Movie Character
John “Hannibal” Smith, leader of “The A-Team,” knew the importance of a great plan, and you need one for your video. Before you get started, consider the following:
A) Determine the purpose of your video. Is it employee training, learning and development, elearning, a presentation, or something else?
B) How long is the video going to be? Even if you only have a rough guess, this information will help when you get to the next step
C) Do you have any pre-existing materials to base the script on, such as an article, a financial report, a database, or other text? Or are you planning to write a script from scratch?
D) What favorite movie character would you like as a presenter? What movies have they appeared in?
Once you’re clear on everything, it’s time to go to the next step. Every project needs a foundation to start from. Although you’re not building a baseball field in the corn like Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams,” you do need to select a template to create your video. Choose a slick, professional template from Hour One that matches the kind of video you want to create, and then you can customize it with your brand and colors as needed. Yes, it’s that simple. Alfred Hitchcock was one of cinema’s greatest and most influential directors, and as the master of suspense, he knew how to create a winning script. While no one expects you to be the next Hitchcock, writing a tight script is critical to your video’s success. Fortunately, you can access incredible AI tools to help you do the job without the danger of writer’s block!
Remember when we asked about the length of your video? A good rule of thumb is that one page of text equals roughly one minute of video, so keep that in mind as we proceed.
If you have pre-existing text to create your video script (or have written one yourself), you can use our Text-to-Video AI to input the text and convert it to the perfect script, which you can edit to your satisfaction.
If you don’t have a script yet, never fear—because Hour One incorporates a new AI writing assistant called Script Wizard, based on the NLP Tool/AI Chatbot GPT-3.To use its text generation capabilities, type any prompt into the script text box, then select the magic wand icon in the corner to access the Script Wizard menu. The AI can rewrite the text, switch to first-person mode, and lengthen or shorten it as required. Scriptwriters who want to alter the tone of their writing can use Script Wizard to add an emotional twist. You can make the content more cheerful, serious, formal, youthful, professional, or humorous.
Affer a few choice edits to get it just right for your video, you’ll have a script that would make Alfred Hitchcock jealous.Winston Wolf from “Pulp Fiction” was a good judge of character, and you’ll need to be one to add your favorite movie character to your video.
Hour One’s platform contains a vast and diverse character library with over 100 AI-powered, photorealistic virtual human presenters to narrate your video in over 60 languages.
But to create our video, we will have to create a new, custom character. Here’s how to do it:
- First, sign up to create a custom character.
- Next, you’ll need to upload 20 minutes of footage of your character speaking clearly on camera. How do you get this footage? You can use one of the many free AI Video Editors available online to edit 20 minutes of footage from a legally-obtained copy of your favorite movie character’s film (or from YouTube videos). This way, you can quickly assemble the required footage without having to learn complicated editing software.
- After that, it takes approximately 14 business days from when Hour One receives the footage to complete your custom character. The finalized custom character will be delivered directly to your account.
Once you have your character in your Hour One’s account, you’re ready to create the latest and greatest HR training video starring your favorite movie character! It’s time. Create your video. Like Master Yoda once said, there is no try—because this step is so easy. You don’t even need to use The Force. Press the button and let the AI video generator produce your finished video. You’ve provided it with all of the required tools and guidance, and it can handle the rest.Once your video is complete, you can easily make changes, edit, and add captions. You can also have Hour One quickly generate customized alternate versions of the video in another language, led by a different presenter, or with any other variations.
Then, share your cinematic masterpiece with your intended audience and nominate yourself for an Academy Award while you’re at it.
That’s a Wrap for Hour One
The convergence of video’s popularity for corporate uses and Generative AI technology now allows us to do something previously out of our reach—creating a video with our favorite movie character. These AI-generated videos have a built-in level of high engagement and trust due to The Celebrity Effect, and offer savings of time and money, increased effectiveness, and scalable production. Using four Generative AI tools, including an AI video generator, anyone can create a memorable corporate video starring a favorite character.
AI video generators like Hour One are an ideal solution for your corporate video needs. With an array of virtual presenters, languages, and templates available, creating a video for almost any use case is within your reach.
Try creating your first video for free today and see what Hour One can do for your organization.
(Academy Award not included.)
