AI Video: What It Is and How It Is Made
Try it: write a courier delivers a letter to the wrong flat on New Year’s Eve and stays for the countdown, make it at the shortest length, read the cast and the storyboard it produces, and use the free 5-second preview to see one real shot.
How an AI video gets made
- An idea in words. A sentence, a script, or a novel. Photos or a clip can start it too.
- Words become shots. The text is broken into scenes, and each scene into shots with a camera framing, who is in frame, what happens and how long it lasts.
- Each shot is generated as a clip. A video model draws the moving picture; in a good setup it also generates the voices speaking the lines.
- The clips are joined. Music goes under the voices, subtitles can go over the picture.
- You fix what missed. A shot that came out wrong is changed and made again on its own.
Steps 2 and 5 are where a person spends their time, and in SceneMixer they are text: you read the storyboard and edit the words, which is free. Step 3 is the one that costs money, because every attempt is a separate call to a model. What is inside a project.
Why clips are short, and how a long video is built
A video model holds a few seconds of motion together well and loses its grip as the clip gets longer. So a 60-second video is four 15-second segments, or two 30-second ones, joined. On the Segment length setting SceneMixer offers Standard 15 seconds or Long take 30 seconds; the price per second is the same either way, and 30-second segments can only be made by the models that support them. More, shorter segments give you finer control when something misses; longer ones hold one stretch of action in a single generation. 15 or 30 second segments.
An episode is segments joined, and a series is episodes: a short script gives a few episodes, a long one gives many. Making a multi-episode series · Long AI video generator.
The hard part: staying the same
Every clip is drawn separately, so left alone a face drifts, a jacket changes colour and the room rearranges itself. The fix is not a better prompt, it is a shared set of references. In SceneMixer the script is read once into a cast, a prop list and a set of locations, you approve them, and every shot of every episode is generated from that same set. The system also builds an automatic AI 3D model of every scene, so people stay where they sat and the cuts make sense. Why a whole series stays consistent.
It is not perfect. When a face changes or characters swap sides between cuts, there is a checklist: face changed · swapped sides.
What AI video does well, and what it does not yet
| Does well | Does not do (yet) |
|---|---|
| Worlds that would cost a fortune to build: a palace, a spaceship hangar, a rainy street at night | Draw legible text. Prices, dates and signs are not drawn reliably, so they go on an end card or in the spoken line |
| Anime, cartoon, claymation and film looks from the same script | Hold one unbroken take longer than a segment (up to 30 seconds) |
| The same scene in another language, with the lines spoken in it | Keep a real person’s likeness: photos of real faces and famous characters are refused |
| An ad from one to four photos | Be instant: a generation takes minutes, because the model takes minutes |
Why a generation takes time · Text on screen and wrong dialogue.
Rights, labels and the badge
A video made on a free SceneMixer account carries a small AI badge in the bottom-right corner; turning it off is a membership benefit, and a shared link always carries it. Removing the badge does not remove the rules of the platform you post to: TikTok, YouTube and others have their own AI-content labels. Do AI videos need a label? · Can you monetize AI videos?.
Three ways to start
| You have | You get | Read |
|---|---|---|
| A script, a novel or a one-line idea | A drama with a consistent cast and spoken dialogue | Upload a script |
| One to four photos of a product or a place | An ad of 15, 30 or 60 seconds | An ad from one photo |
| A clip you shot | A remake with new characters in a new look | AI video remake |
Make it in SceneMixer, start to finish
- Script: paste your own on Upload Script, or write the brief above in AI Create and let it draft the episodes.
- Step 1: Type Short Drama; Scene Style Neon Nights, Urban Opulence; Costume Style Smart Casual, Streetwear; Visual Style Digital HD, Soft Glow; Target Region; dialogue language; 9:16 Portrait. Then read the script.
- Step 2: the two leads with one mark each and a voice; the stairwell and the balcony as locations; the letter as a prop. The first 15 setup images on an account are free.
- Storyboard: generate episode 1 first (free on your first drama) and read it before you render anything. One place per segment.
- Video: render on the default tier at 10 credits a second, fix single shots instead of whole episodes, then put the episode together and post.
| Term | What it means in a SceneMixer project |
|---|---|
| Project | The settings, the cast and the list of episodes. Everything below inherits from it |
| Cast | Characters, locations and props, each with a description and a picture |
| Episode | A numbered part of the story with its own storyboard |
| Segment | One generation: about 15 or 30 seconds of finished video, with the shot text that produced it |
| Take | Every time you generate a segment the result is kept; one is current, and switching between them is free |
| Tier | The model and quality you generate on; the price per second depends on it |
| Join | Putting the current take of every segment into one episode file |
FAQ
What is an AI video?
A video whose pictures, and often voices and music, are generated by a model from text, images or both rather than filmed.
How are AI videos made?
Words are broken into shots, each shot is generated as a short clip by a video model, and the clips are joined with music and sometimes subtitles.
Why are AI video clips so short?
Models hold a few seconds of motion together well and lose consistency as a clip grows. Longer videos are made of several clips joined.
How do AI videos keep the same character?
By generating every shot from one fixed set of references. SceneMixer reads the script into a cast, locations and props once, and every shot uses that set.
Can AI video include speech and music?
Yes. Dialogue is spoken inside the video in any of 15 languages, one voice per character, and each episode is scored for you.
How long does it take to make an AI video?
Writing and checking take minutes; each generated segment takes minutes too, because the model takes minutes.
How much does an AI video cost?
On the default tier video is 10 credits a second and joining is 1 credit a second, so a 60-second episode is about 660 credits before retakes.
Do I have to label AI video?
The platforms you post to have their own labels and you should use them. A small AI badge is on by default for free accounts and turning it off is a membership benefit.
See an AI video get made, one step at a time
Paste a page, read the cast and the storyboard, then decide.
Updated November 3, 2026