Attack of the clones. AI: Actionable Insights #10

Welcome to the latest edition of AI: Actionable Insights! This week we're looking at creating a digital clone to use in video content.

As I say at the start of most editions, the usual rules apply - anything we talk about here will include actual take aways relevant to you and your business.

Making me into an Avatar

(The digital kind, not a blue one from the fictional planet of Pandora)

I need to be in two places at once this week - I’m at an event in London at the same time I’m presenting a piece to the team here at Intergage… so I thought this was the perfect excuse to create a digital version of myself so I could kind of do both.

Introducing Digital Luke v1:

This was created using HeyGen* – and shot on a mobile phone at home.

The script was mostly written by ChatGPT with a couple of edits from me.

I decided to use my kitchen wall as the background, and after spending a little bit of time to make the lighting better - obscuring the sources of natural light and weird shadows with cardboard and bringing in a work light from the garage to use as a fill - I was ready to go.

Then I had to shoot two minutes of footage, with pauses, smiles, and minimal hand gestures then upload it to their server to create the digital version of me.

Worth noting that you also have to read a script into a webcam to confirm they have your permission to create a digital version of you, and that this isn't used for nefarious purposes.

HeyGen provide both written and videos guides on best practice for creating one of these videos - it does suggest that you should pause and breath through your nose in their example script, which seems an oddly specific instruction:

On the basic paid plan, it then took about 5-10 minutes to process and create a digital version of me… and honestly, I wasn’t ready for the range of emotions I felt seeing a fairly convincing version of me on screen that I could give text to and generate a video!

Yes, it alternates between US, and a more well-spoken version of me but it’s pretty good.

So after this test video I created my script for tomorrow and have sent that video version of me embedded onto a slide for the team… I wish I was there to see how they react.

Sharing my video workflow

I've wanted to make video clips based on this Newsletter for some time - this gives me a really easy and quick method to do that and saves me having to record clips every two weeks:

1. Write newsletter.
2. Copy n paste Newsletter into chatGPT with a prompt to edit it into a script, and create a title and description for YouTube.
3. Paste the script into HeyGen along with some assets to produce a video version.
4. Upload the video, with Title and Description to YouTube.
5. BONUS: Use Descript to chop into social clips as needed.

My overall review:

For something that took just over an hour from start to finish, shot on a mobile with no special equipment other than a tripod, I think it’s remarkable. With a bit more work, using a better set up I have no doubt you could make a much more convincing version.

The only small gripe I have is the accent is Americanised (or should that be Americanized?) so it isn't quite right, albeit I only used the mic on the phone so a better recording may produce a better result.

If you want to go all in there is a professional studio process and examples from that look phenomenal - they also have a selection of "off the shelf" ready to use avatars if you didn't want to feature you or one of your team.

I should also note you can redo the video capture (up to 4 times a month for free) at any point so I'll be setting up a better recording in the near future to create Digital Luke v2!

Now it exists, creating a new video is as quick as pasting a script in and using their easy-to-use editor to add assets and easily create videos.

Actionable Insight

How and where could you use a similar set of steps to create training videos, staff updates or other video content that seemed out of reach due to time and or money?

If you have a pilot use case - go to HeyGen* and create your own avatar, it is a paid service that starts at $29 a month for 15 minutes of generated video – they do also have pre-existing avatars you can use, if you really don’t want to film yourself and go through this whole process.

Other tools are available like Synthesia and if you just want to clone your voice, Eleven Labs is fantastic.

Thanks for reading, if you have any feedback or topics that you’d like us to cover please do let me know.

We've covered a lot in these 9 newsletters, if you’d like more tailored help with anything we’ve covered, please do get in touch.

A final, highly important question:

I’ll be sharing more videos from virtual / digital Luke in the near future, but I do have an important question: what should I call him??

One of my friends suggested that I call this virtual me “Duke” – being a mashup of “DUplicate / Digital Luke”… what do you think?

Digital Luke, Virtual Luke, Luke’s avatar, Luke’s clone. All suggestions welcome!

Cheers,

Luke

Group Head of AI @ Intergage Group Ltd

*NOTE: All links to HeyGen are affiliate links that give us credits to create videos if you sign-up - we're not being paid to promote HeyGen or get benefit from them in anyway other way than that.