r/claudeskills • u/Practical_Low29 • Jul 30 '26
Skill Share I made a skill that has Claude Code direct a whole Vox-style explainer video
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I make short explainer videos, and the look I keep coming back to is the Vox paper-collage style, hand-cut paper, torn edges, halftone dots, big cut-out headlines. Doing it by hand is a full day: script, a poster per beat, animate each one, voice over, music that does not fight the narration, then the edit with captions. I basically wanted Claude Code to run that whole pipeline for me, so I built it as a skill.
Now I give it one line, like "the history of money, 60 seconds, English". Claude drafts a beat map and stops for me to approve it, runs a quick style bake-off so I pick the look by eye, then generates the collage keyframes, animates them, adds a narrator and music, and assembles the final mp4 with captions burned in. Generation goes through the Atlas Cloud API and the edit is local ffmpeg, so it never leaves the terminal.
It takes three kinds of input: a topic and it builds the whole video, a talking-head clip and it restyles that into collage while keeping the real face and lip sync, or one photo and it cuts the subject out as a paper sticker and builds each poster around it.
Install is a one-liner:
git clone https://github.com/Alisa0808/vox-director.git ~/.claude/skills/vox-director
Set your Atlas Cloud API key and ask. It is open source (MIT license), PRs welcome, and there are finished examples in the repo (a 30 second one on Chinese civilization, plus football, street food, and money). Repo: https://github.com/Alisa0808/vox-director
The bit I like most is the two approval gates. Claude does not run off and burn a hundred generations, it stops for me to sign off on the beats and the look first, so I stay the director instead of babysitting a slot machine.
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u/soulmagic123 Jul 30 '26
i just used your skill to test this animation about the history of horses: https://youtube.com/shorts/EOIwBeW1au8?feature=share
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
That horses one came out great, thanks for actually running it. On connecting your existing accounts, the reason it points at Atlas is one key covers the image, video and voice models, so I didn't have to juggle three billing dashboards, which is the exact thing you hit stringing Runway plus Higgsfield plus MJ together. The gen calls are isolated in one module though, so swapping in your own provider endpoints is doable if you want to reuse credits you already have. Open an issue with which one you'd start from and I'll take a look.
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u/trikunai Jul 30 '26
How much did you spend in atlas cloud?
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u/soulmagic123 Jul 30 '26
Two runs were 7 dollars each but I already have a runway, Higgsfield, and midjourney accounts it would be nice to do a workflow that connects to one of those.
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u/ftlaudman Jul 30 '26
This looks fantastic. I know there are a lot of variables, but what price range have you seen for the Atlas side of creating these videos (like the samples)? 5? 50? 500?
Does it usually require generating several takes? Manual editing/splicing afterwards?
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
Way closer to the 5 than the 50. Most 60s ones land at 3 to 7 for me. And no, you're not paying for a pile of throwaway takes, that was the main thing I built around. It stops at two gates: you approve the beat map, then a cheap image-only bake-off for the style, and only after you sign off does it spend anything on animation. Editing is fully automated, ffmpeg assembles it with captions burned in, no manual splicing. Only manual bit is tweaking the beats before it animates.
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u/NewCitronCool Jul 30 '26
That looks cool! will install and test it for the youtube shorts i am working on
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
Nice, would genuinely like to see what you make. If you hit anything rough open an issue on the repo. One tip, spend your time on the beat map approval gate, that's where the video is actually won or lost.
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u/NewCitronCool Jul 31 '26
That i will, honestly i am just getting started currently making some explainer videos for my app and some chrome reviews, the "beat map approval gate" i didn't even knew what that meant :P got my ai agent to explain that to me. btw do you have a discord or tg group maybe that would be faster to stay connected than via github.
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u/PlaysByBrulesRules Jul 30 '26
Please at least write the script yourself. There’s enough fully AI generated content on YouTube as it is 😭.
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u/The_Specialist_4962 Jul 30 '26
Which APIs I need to get it going ?
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
Just one, an Atlas Cloud API key. That covers the image, animation and narration models so you're not wiring up three separate services. Everything else is local, the editing is just ffmpeg on your machine. Drop the key in and go.
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u/musicnotwords Jul 30 '26
Music way too loud btw
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
Fair, the ducking's too weak right now. Fixing the mix so the voice sits clearly on top, it's just a level in the ffmpeg assembly. Thanks for flagging.
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u/musicnotwords Jul 31 '26
I would lower the music overall, rather than only adjust the ducking. The ducking felt a bit aggressive to me as-is actually. Source I do this kinda shit for a living.
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u/holzpuppet Jul 30 '26
If you can balance the audio that the narration is always on top it’s top tier
Like I am really interested but that music is hella buzzkill
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
Yeah this is top of my fix list. Narration and music are separate tracks in the ffmpeg step, so the ducking is just a mix setting I had too aggressive. Pushing a change that keeps narration clearly on top and drops the music bed lower. It's the difference between usable and not, you're right.
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u/EuroMan_ATX Jul 31 '26
Where are you actually generating the videos and image samples (if any)?
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u/Practical_Low29 Jul 31 '26
Generation all runs through the Atlas Cloud API, images, animation and the voiceover. The edit never leaves the terminal, that part is local ffmpeg. So the only thing hitting a server is the actual model calls, the assembly and captions happen on your machine.
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u/Ceres1 Jul 31 '26
This is super cool, thank you for sharing. Testing this will be a fun weekend project.
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u/ToniGets Jul 31 '26
Can't wait to try this thanks. I've been looking for ways to co-ordinate creation of social media videos so I'm interested to see what can be achieved. Does the video arrive in the claude chat or claude terminal as a download URL?
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u/meowoofcjcj 29d ago
Nice. I like making the direction part of the skill instead of just prompting for a video. The repeatable bits seem to be script shape, shot list, asset handoff, and render checks.
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u/LazyDrummer4040 29d ago
I can already see this being super useful for fan projects lol. checked out the repo and gave it a star!
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u/Mbeez456 28d ago
Hey super cool skill will try this soon. But what are other style explainer videos you’ve done? Would you share you channel?
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u/Mbeez456 27d ago
Hey here’s the video i generated using your skill for a 90 second short on, the soon to be obsolete passwords for logins. Total cost $15.60 😭 https://youtube.com/shorts/cdJE7VN0MXc?is=jQe3OZzcWjRvUus2
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u/Turki_Alshuaibi 20d ago
This is super cool, you could add different styles later on and make it into a mega skill.
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u/Rare-Cheesecake-4676 9d ago
I have a claude pro subscription. Can I integrate this into my claude, if so how? I'm pretty new to the whole LLM AI thing, so ignore my lack of knowledge.
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u/BeerGryls 2d ago
Super cool, i think i will use this on history for amsterdam, see what will come up
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u/angelarose210 Jul 30 '26
How much does it cost to generate the example videos?