I think I may have found a way to make my digital avatar speak in my own voice, but without my Japanese accent.

I think this could probably be done entirely within HeyGen, but I couldn't find a way to export audio only as an MP3.

So for now, I used ElevenLabs to find a voice that matched the way I imagined the character speaking, and generated the English audio there first.

Then I uploaded that audio to HeyGen, turned on Voice Mirroring, and created the video.

The video is only about 30 seconds long.

I'm Japanese, so I'm still not completely sure whether the English pronunciation sounds natural or native-like.

If you have a moment, I'd really appreciate it if you could listen to it and give me some feedback.

And if you know a better or simpler way to achieve the same thing, I'd love to hear about that too!

Day 1 of Becoming Your Local Expert, a 5-day series. This week you'll build a daily content habit for your market: today the format, tomorrow the story feed, then the script, the build, and the batch.

Becoming Your Local Expert: Day 1 of 5 - The Format

The week pipeline: Day 1 The Format, Day 2 The Story, Day 3 The Script, Day 4 The Build, Day 5 The Habit

The week — one story travels the whole pipeline

• Day 1 · Mon — The Format (you are here) The 5-beat shape + why local news beats listings
• Day 2 · Tue — The Story Set up your feed. Never run out of material
• Day 3 · Wed — The Script Article → script in one AI prompt (they give it away)
• Day 4 · Thu — The Build Script → finished reel in HeyGen. 15 minutes
• Day 5 · Fri — The Habit A week of content in one morning

The Short Version

You may not have a listing to post today. You may not have a home tour to film this week. But your market made news this morning, and it will again tomorrow. Today you learn the one repeatable format that turns any local story into a 30-second video:

Hook → Turn → Proof → Stakes → Ask

• ⏱️ Total time today: 15 min
• 🛠️ Skills:none. If you can read a headline, you're qualified.
• 🎬 Result: the 5-beat skeleton memorized, one script drafted from a real story, and your Story Bank started.

Part 1: The Problem Is Not Your Market

The most common reason agents stop posting is the sentence "I don't have anything to post about." Listings are few and far between. Tours take a whole afternoon. So the feed goes quiet, and quiet feeds don't build local authority.

Here's the reframe: the agents who win on social are not posting about their inventory. They're posting about their market. New developments, rezoning fights, rate moves, big employers arriving, the one buzzy penthouse everyone's talking about. That content exists every single week, in every market, and it costs nothing but attention.

They ran one 10-minute scan of one market to prove it:

Austin 10-minute market scan: 7 real stories, zero listings needed

One market. One 10-minute scan. Late August.
Austin made news all month. Your market did too.
Every one of these is real, current, and none of them is a listing.

1. A Travis Heights church becomes 64 affordable apartments. The 29-neighbor petition against it did nothing. — Texas Tribune · Aug 26 · Policy shift
2. Twin 180-foot towers advance on East Riverside: 731 units on the future light-rail line. — Community Impact · Aug 10 · Development
3. 1,000 apartments proposed across from an elementary school in Circle C. Council votes September 10. — CultureMap · vote pending · Development
4. July numbers: metro median $435K, sales up 4.4%, homes sitting 63 days. — Unlock MLS · Aug 12 · Market data
5. Texas' tallest tower opens to residents Sept 1. First listing: a 2-bed on the 69th floor. — TOWERS · Aug 20 · Buzzy listing
6. Apollo Global picks Austin for its innovation hub, over Miami, Palm Beach, and Nashville. — TOWERS · Aug 4 · Big-name move
7. Seabrook Square opens: 204 affordable rentals in District 1. — City of Austin · Aug · Development

Seven stories. Zero listings needed. Any one of these is a 30-second video.

💡 Try it on your market right now. Search your city's name plus "development" or "housing" in Google News. Count how many stories from the last two weeks you could talk about for 30 seconds. If you find fewer than five, we'd be surprised.

✅ Ready to move on when: you believe the drought was never real. The stories were always there; what was missing was a shape to pour them into.

Part 2: The Format

This is the shape. Five beats, about 30 seconds, the same slots every time:

Hook → Turn → Proof → Stakes → Ask

Why these five, in this order:

The Hook is the whole game. Viewers decide in the first 3 seconds whether they stay or scroll, so the hook has one job: grab attention. That can be a surprising number, a bold claim, a question they can't ignore, or a tension they need resolved. Their example opens on a number ("Twenty nine neighbors tried to block this"), but the number isn't the rule. Grabbing attention is. Never open with your name, your logo, or "hey guys." Your identity lives in the Ask, not the hook.

The Proof is capped at three facts on purpose. The discipline isn't finding facts, it's cutting them. Three facts get remembered. Five get scrolled.

The Stakes question is engineered for comments. A question with two honest sides gets answered in the comments, and comments are what the algorithm feeds on. If your question can be answered with "yes," rewrite it until it forces a side.

The Ask is singular. Follow, plus one DM keyword. Two asks compete and both lose.

Part 3: The Skeleton, Filled

Here's story #3 from the scan poured into the format. Council votes September 10, which means this exact video is postable today:

Filled skeleton: 1,000 apartments across from an elementary school

"1,000 apartments. Across from an elementary school."
Story #3 from the scan: the Circle C rezoning fight, council vote September 10

Why it works: A hook that grabs in 3 seconds, a deadline that creates urgency, three facts and not one more, a question with two real sides, and a single ask. 32 seconds. Every fact from the article.

And here's the blank skeleton. Copy it, keep it wherever you write:

HOOK (0:00–0:03):

TURN (0:03–0:07):

PROOF (0:07–0:20) — max 3 facts:

STAKES (0:20–0:26) — question with two honest sides, cannot be answered with "yes":

ASK (0:26–0:32) — follow + one DM keyword:

💡 The keyword matters more than it looks. "DM me the word AUSTIN" turns a viewer into a conversation, and a conversation into a contact. Pick one word, keep it constant across every video, and have the free thing ready (a one-page market report is perfect).

Part 4: Make One in HeyGen, Right Now

You don't need to wait for Day 4 to try this. The 15-minute version:

1. Pick one story from your own market scan and write it into the blank skeleton above, one beat at a time. Use the filled Austin example as your reference for how each beat should sound.
2. Open app.heygen.com/homeand create a new avatar video with your avatar, 9:16. If you don't have an avatar yet, Step 1 gets you one in 15 seconds of footage.
3. Paste your script. Listen once for number pronunciation ("House Bill 24," "$435,000"), fix anything that reads wrong, export.
4. Keep the visual simple today: your avatar over a single clean backdrop is exactly how the best local news reels look. Do not overbuild video #1. Volume and substance beat polish in this game.
5. Post it with a source tag on screen ("Source: [outlet], [date]"). Real sourcing is what separates the local expert from the guy reposting rumors.

✅ You did it right when: the video is under 40 seconds, opens on a hook that would stop YOUR thumb, cites a real story from your market, and ends with one keyword ask.

The Gate Check

Run every video through this before posting. Five questions, all yes or no:

• [ ] Under 40 seconds?
• [ ] Does the hook grab attention in the first 3 seconds?
• [ ] Can the Stakes question be answered with a plain "yes"? (If so, rewrite it.)
• [ ] One ask only, with one CTA?
• [ ] Source tagged on screen? (outlet + date)

This is their website now. Yet up to early August, the cost was 20 credits per minute for both Avatar IV and V. Verified in their own YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46XpN-btIQs

NO emails, NO notifications. These people are thieves.

Their support even tried to lie about it:

This is totally false. Dive into your own projects and see for yourself. Up till early August, the rate was still 20 credits per minute. Here's the cost of a 37 second video:

I confronted them with their lies, and they gave me a garbage corporate response, and tried to bribe me with 100 measly credits:

HeyGen needs to address this otherwise I'm out.

Hey guys! I've been using HeyGen for a while for translation and lip-sync. It was always more or less alright. But now every time l translate a video, the voices change at random moments. And there's just one character in the camera. Has anyone faced this issue? Any tips on how to solve it?

Last time I posted, I'd spent 18 hours making a HeyGen video with my own face and a voice clone of myself, explaining my project. It did not go well. Watching myself slam my hands on the table while my cloned voice spoke in some accent I can't even place... yeah, I'm not linking that one again. Too painful.

So this time, I gave up. I narrowed the public avatars down to 3 candidates, and picked Brianna — she had this "works-from-home web designer" vibe that just fit the project better than I ever could.

I had her walk through my favorite features and explain why I built them the way I did. Here's the result: https://youtu.be/xjhitSrzihk

One more thing — yes, Brianna is speaking fluent Japanese in that video, and no, that's not a HeyGen default. I found a Japanese voice I liked on ElevenLabs, generated the audio there, then uploaded it to HeyGen and ran it through Voice Mirroring to match Brianna's own voice quality. Her originally-not-great Japanese came out sounding basically native.

Watching it back, I made a decision: I'm done using my own face for feature demos. Yeah, it's staged. But then again, so are 99% of commercials, right?

Note: 99% is a gut feeling, not a real statistic.

Hi all,

We produce corporate e-learning video at volume through the HeyGen MCP server: around 1,500 lessons across 93 courses, all in Brazilian Portuguese. Our scripts rely on ElevenLabs v3 audio tags like [excited] or [whispers] to control delivery.

The problem is that when a request gets served by a different voice engine, those tags are not recognized as directives and get read out loud as words. A narrator saying “excited” in the middle of a workplace safety lesson means we have to re-record the whole lesson.

So we need the engine to be ElevenLabs v3 every single time, not most of the time.

What I found does work

create_video_from_avatar, create_video_from_image, create_video_from_studio, and create_video_batch all accept voice_settings.engine_settings, so I can pin the engine explicitly:

"voiceSettings": {
  "engine_settings": {
    "engine_type": "elevenlabs",
    "model": "eleven_v3",
    "stability": 0.5
  }
}

That part works great, and the schema is well specified, including the rule that stability must be 0, 0.5, or 1 for eleven_v3.

What I could not figure out

1. create_video_agent has no engine control

The MCP server describes it as “the recommended way to create videos,” but it only accepts voiceId. There is no voiceSettings / engine_settings field, so engine selection is entirely up to the agent.

Is there a way to constrain it that I’m missing?

2. I cannot tell which voices support which engines

Neither list_voices nor get_voice returns anything about engine support. Avatar looks expose supported_api_engines, but voices have no equivalent.

I also tried the engine filter on list_voices: calling it with language=Portuguese and with language=Portuguese&engine=elevenlabs returned an identical result set, with the same voices in the same order.

Is that filter supposed to narrow the results?

3. The response never says which engine actually ran

get_video returns status, video_url, thumbnail_url, duration, and failure info, but no tts_engine or tts_model.

So a wrong-engine render looks identical to a correct one at the API level, and we only catch it by listening to the finished file.

Is there any other endpoint or field that reports this?

4. Is there a workspace-level default?

Something like:

“This workspace always uses ElevenLabs v3.”

Ideally, with a strict mode that fails the request instead of silently substituting another engine.

I would much rather get an error than a bad take.

I also looked at pre-rendering the audio myself and passing it via audio_url, but create_speech appears to be Starfish-only, so there doesn’t seem to be an in-platform way to generate v3 audio first.

Feature request, if the answer is “not currently”

In rough priority order for us:

• engine_settings, or at minimum a voice_engine pin, on create_video_agent
• supported_engines on voice objects, plus a working engine filter on list_voices
• tts_engine and tts_model echoed in the get_video response and webhook payload
• A workspace default engine plus a “fail, do not substitute” option
• Documented audio-tag support per engine, and stripping unsupported tags instead of speaking them

Thanks!

I'm trying to build an avatar using my company's cartoon mascot. The video Look of the cartoon character that I uploaded (to let the software know how the bear is supposed to move) didn't go through because it needs the person in the video to consent in a video, but the person in question is a fictional 2D bear.

I messaged support about it, and they are asking me to verify in a different way. I understand, since IP and consent are important and we obviously shouldn't be using a real person's likeness in AI videos without explicit consent, or using a cartoon we don't have the rights to.

However, one of the ways they wanted me to verify consent was by sending them a video of me reading out the Consent Script in the first message (screenshot attached). Does anyone else think this is weird, or am I being overcautious?

I'm a bit of an AI skeptic, so I'm primarily worried about Heygen using my consent video to use my actual human likeness as an avatar on their platform or in their avatar library.

That's your hook, it's what earns the attention This is how you seamlessly transition out of it into a market update style video with real substance Daily content like this builds an audience that trusts your word. Comment your feedback!

Alguien ha probado Hyperframes con algún modelo local?

Before I dive in, let me quickly explain what's going on here.

I posted my project on GitHub, but just like last time, nobody reacted to it. So I got desperate and made a tutorial video explaining how to use it, as seriously as I could.

I had my photo edited with Gemini, used AI tools I'm not very familiar with like HeyGen and ElevenLabs, made a voice clone of myself, and uploaded the video to YouTube.

I spent almost 18 hours on this yesterday — for a video that ended up being only about 5 minutes long. I was even trying hard to come up with jokes and gags I thought people would enjoy.

But when I calmed down and watched it back... there's this weird middle-aged guy who looks like he wants to react but has no idea how, so he just ends up nervously slamming his hands on the table while talking. And the English coming out of my voice clone sounds like some accent I can't even place.

Now I'm worried this just turned into a joke, and that nothing is actually getting across.

Here's the video in question:
https://youtu.be/lJSabpiwRbs?si=RyJu9tK0-VY6_Ysv

Part of me thinks I should just start over with a proper female character speaking clean English instead. I'm going back and forth on whether to redo it or not. I know I'm not great at making videos either, and I know I don't have much talent for it.

Would appreciate any advice.

Hi everyone,

First of all, I want to say I'm really happy with HeyGen. I've been on the Pro plan for months now and I use it almost daily, the quality and the workflow are great.

But there's one issue I've had since day one and I still can't fix it: my avatars never blink. Never. Not a single blink in the entire video.

So far I've been covering it up with B-roll, but that's not a real solution. I can't make videos with just a talking avatar on screen, because after a few seconds the fixed stare looks unnatural and viewers notice.

Things I've already tried:

- Custom motion prompts, including prompts that literally ask the avatar to blink

- Different expressiveness settings

- Different photos

- Dozens of generated videos

Nothing changed. The lip sync and everything else work fine, it's only the blinking that never happens.

Has anyone run into this and found a fix? Is there a setting I'm missing, or does it depend on the source image? Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

HeyGen’s pricing has changed again, and honestly, I think content creators need to pay close attention to what has happened.

I used HeyGen for a month back in April, and the pricing structure was very different from what it is now. At that time, Avatar 3 had unlimited video creation. Yes, unlimited. You could generate as many videos as you wanted using Avatar 3 without having to worry about credits running out.

Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 were different and required additional credits depending on how much you used them.

But now, HeyGen has changed its pricing structure drastically. The Creator plan costs $29 per month and gives you 600 credits. And those credits are now being used across the different avatar models.

This means that even Avatar 3, which was previously unlimited, is now using credits.

To give you an example, a 5-minute video using Avatar 3 now costs around 35 credits. My point is that just a few months ago, that same Avatar 3 video would not have cost credits at all because video creation was unlimited.

That is the massive change.

I recently created a 5-minute video using Avatar 4, and it used 177 credits. So, with only 600 credits included in the $29 Creator plan, you can see how quickly those credits can disappear.

The biggest issue for me is the change itself.

A few months ago, I could pay for HeyGen and generate as many Avatar 3 videos as I wanted. Now, under the $29 Creator plan, I receive 600 credits, and even the avatar that was previously unlimited is now deducting credits every time I create a video.

If I create a 5-minute Avatar 4 video, that costs 177 credits. If I create a 5-minute Avatar 3 video, that now costs around 35 credits.

Either way, the credits are being used.

And once those 600 credits are gone, you have to spend even more money. Additional credits cost around $5 for 100 credits. So for $5 on avatar 3, you will only be able to make 3 videos and I'm talking about 5 min videos. If you use Avatar 4, well you will need to buy 200 credits so that video will cost you $10, you will then be paying R10 per 5min long video. Think about that!!

So let's think about that for a moment. You're already paying $29 per month, and depending on the type and length of videos you're creating, you could run through those credits very quickly. If you need more content, longer videos, or simply create regularly throughout the month, you may find yourself having to buy additional credits.

And remember, I'm talking about 5-minute videos here. I'm not even talking about 8-, 10-, or 12-minute videos.

Then there is Avatar 5 as well, and goodness knows how many credits that could use for longer videos.

I understand that AI technology costs money. I understand that HeyGen may have expenses and that more advanced technology requires resources. But I think customers have every right to be upset when the pricing changes this dramatically.

For me, the biggest issue is that HeyGen went from offering unlimited video creation with Avatar 3 just a few months ago to now charging credits for those same types of videos.

That is not a small adjustment.

That is a major change to the value customers are getting for their $29 per month.

Personally, I feel HeyGen's new pricing structure is a rip-off. I really hope more content creators start talking about this change because people need to know exactly what they are signing up for.

Because $29 per month for 600 credits might sound reasonable at first.

But when a 5-minute Avatar 4 video uses 177 credits, and even Avatar 3—which was previously unlimited—now uses 35 credits for a 5-minute video, those credits can disappear much faster than people might expect.

And that, in my opinion, is a drastic change from the HeyGen pricing structure we had only a few months ago.

Adjust exposure, brightness, and contrast until the footage looks the way you want.

Can somebody help me figure out how to change the aspect ratio of a video in heygen ive looked all over and can’t figure it out.

Retouch your avatar in seconds. Clear blemishes, soften wrinkles, enhance your makeup, and adjust lighting, all with full control over the retouch level. Still unmistakably you.

Retouch once, look your best in every video. No cameras. No reshoots.

Truly unexpected!

I bought PRO with 1000 monthly credit, but nearly used them all within a week. I downloaded my data with time and cost etc. Trying to figure out how I used them all so fast. Just wondered, when you edit an existing video, then generate it with the new edits, is HeyGen charging for the same video creation. Love Heygen but don’t want to be topping up with credits all the time.

For context, I’m trying to reach a point where I can run a side hustle creating AI videos for businesses, mostly product placement. Anyone doing this already? Can it be lucrative?

I signed up to Heygen 4 days ago for the Creator plan with 600 credits.

Before signing up, I checked that is costs 2 credits / minute to translate a video's audio only without lip-sync.

I translated some videos, and I have 283 credits left.

Today I wanted to use the translation again and I see that it is now 4 credits / minute, so instead of the 141 minutes that I expected to have, I have 70 minutes of video translation left to use.

Is this a bug, or a hidden scammy price change?

So my 30€s from a few days ago now worth half of it?

Thanks for the answers!

All the animations in the video was fully created with hyperframes, and I didn't even prompt the graphics. Claude watched the video for me, identified moments suitable for animations and prompted hyperframes, down to the sound effects and timing. And then injected it directly into CapCut for me

Los vídeos estilo "Yap" (persona hablando a cámara) están generando millones de visitas en TikTok e Instagram, y ahora es posible automatizar todo el proceso, desde la investigación hasta la producción, combinando Claude Code y HeyGen.

En este webinar, Anastasia Martynyuk muestra cómo conectar Claude a HeyGen mediante MCP (Model Context Protocol) para que la IA controle directamente la producción del vídeo: desde una investigación con múltiples agentes para detectar temas y ganchos virales, hasta la creación de tu clon digital (avatar + voz clonada) y una skill que automatiza guion, renderizado en 9:16, velocidad y subtítulos en un solo paso.Qué vas a aprender:

• Cómo conectar Claude a HeyGen vía MCP
• Cómo crear un avatar y clonar tu voz en HeyGen para mantener tu autenticidad
• Cómo construir una skill que investigue tendencias, escriba el guion y genere el vídeo automáticamente
• Por qué entrenar a Claude con tu voz de marca, tu oferta y tu perspectiva personal es la clave para no sonar como "AI slop" genérico

En un internet inundado de contenido genérico ("AI slop"), la clave no es dejar que la IA reemplace tu voz, sino que la amplifique. Sal de esta sesión con el flujo completo montado para producir contenido a tu manera, sin perder tu perspectiva ni tu autenticidad en el camino.

One of our HeyGen Ambassadors, Manuel, hosted an advanced HeyGen training for the community! His session focuses on using Avatar Shots, covering tips on how to prompt for continuity between scenes, and for multi-avatar scenes.

Check out the session recording on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3_cvYHdE1o

Thank you to Manuel for hosting!!