A Beginner’s Guide to Creating Videos With AI in 2024

Understanding AI in Video Creation

According to “The Video Marketing Playbook” by HubSpot , 41% of marketers say ROI from video marketing is high, while 87% percent say video is an effective tool for increasing brand awareness. It’s easy to see why: Video’s engaging nature, combined with the ability to reach customers across multiple channels, makes the format a compelling choice for businesses wanting to grow.

AI offers organizations of all sizes an accessible, scalable way of creating high-quality videos. Its effectiveness is undeniable, with the majority of marketers (96%) reporting a positive ROI on AI-powered video marketing campaigns.

But be warned: AI isn’t a silver bullet. While the latest tech can automate tasks and generate content and ideas, human expertise remains critical for creative direction, scriptwriting and overall video strategy.

At Superside, we recognize the power of AI and are eagerly incorporating cutting-edge tools into our workstreams. We’re adamant about using AI to enhance our capacity but not to replace our creative talent. Every Superside creative is already at the top of their field. Now, they’re simply supercharged.

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3 Types of AI Video Generators

AI video generators perform wizardry (sort of). At the click of a button, they turn ideas into full-fledged videos with visuals, narration and even music.

These generators are democratizing video production, making the creation of high-quality videos for marketing, social media or educational purposes accessible to everyone with a computer.

At this stage, there are three types of AI tools to take note of.

1. Text-to-video AI generators

Text-to-video AI generators are all the rage. These platforms use natural language processing (NLP) and AI algorithms to transform written descriptions into full video clips.

You simply feed the AI tool a text prompt or video script outlining the desired content. Next, the AI engine analyzes the script, identifies key elements like scenes, characters and actions, and pairs it with video assets from its vast datasets.

From here, the tool generates video using techniques like image generation or animation. These graphics can range from simple shapes to complex scenes with characters and objects. The tool can also generate a voiceover that narrates the story, add background music or sound effects, and even incorporate transitions between scenes.

The end result? A video that closely resembles your initial vision.

(Insider tip: Generative AI is one of the main types of AI we use at Superside.) 

2. Video editors with AI capabilities

Video editors with AI capabilities are the next generation of video editing. They leverage machine learning algorithms to automate repetitive tasks, enhance video quality and assist users in editing.

These tools can analyze video footage and automatically identify elements like scene changes, cuts or objects to help organize and navigate footage more efficiently. AI can also analyze editing choices and offer suggestions for transitions, pacing or music selection based on the video type or content style.

AI can automate repetitive tasks, such as color correction, noise reduction or basic stabilization, and even curate snippets for social media platforms or trailers. 

3. Video productivity platforms with AI capabilities

Video productivity platforms with AI capabilities are extremely powerful. They combine traditional video editing tools with cutting-edge AI features to supercharge the entire video production process.

• In the pre-production phase, these platforms can assist with script writing and generating visual storyboards based on prompts and suggested scenes and elements.
• During the production phase, they can provide “smart filming assistance” by offering feedback on framing, lighting, audio quality, etc. They can also categorize and tag footage based on content.
• In post-production, the platforms offer the functionality of video editors with AI capabilities, including AI-powered voiceovers and automated captions and subtitles.

How AI Streamlines Video Production Workflows

If you’re wondering about the return on investment of using AI video creators, take a look at the following factors.

Quicker turnaround times

AI is streamlining video production workflows and making processes more efficient. Its ability to create videos from text inputs slashes production time by reducing the need for traditional filming while automating repetitive tasks, like scene detection and color correction. Real-time feedback and suggestions from AI algorithms also empower video makers and creators to make immediate adjustments, accelerating the iteration cycle and ultimately delivering high-quality video at a faster rate.

These are no idle claims. At Superside, we’ve experienced these AI-enhanced turnaround times firsthand, delivering high-quality design projects 30%-60% faster with the help of AI. Synthesia boasts even better results, saying they’ve reduced their average video production time by eight days (62%) with the use of modern AI tools.

A Superside case study illustrating the efficiency of our video production is the personalized wrap-up videos we created for each of our 450+ customers in just one week (we didn’t use AI here).

Cost-effectiveness

Research shows companies that use AI tools instead of traditional methods to create videos experience a massive 80% reduction in time and budget.

AI-powered video production tools make quality video content accessible to businesses without a dedicated video team, sidestepping the need for advanced filming and editing expertise. Not having to outsource video production leads to substantial cost savings.

Here at Superside, we’ve also experienced the massive cost difference AI can make. Within three months of integrating AI into our design workflows, we achieved a remarkable $1M saving for customers from over 500 AI-enhanced projects, which underscores the significant impact AI can have on production budgets.

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Creative video scalability

Scaling video marketing is good for business. It’s the quickest way to connect emotionally with target customers bombarded with content and can amplify your brand messaging with motion. AI’s ability to speed up video production is a powerful tool that can truly set you apart from your competitors.

Superside’s collaboration with Synthego on an animated video for World CRISPR Day exemplifies the power of AI-driven scalability. With a five-day deadline to create a visually engaging video with text and voiceover, Superside leveraged AI for rapid asset generation.

While still adhering to traditional animation project stages, AI proved its worth by generating new assets and missing pieces in bulk—all within seconds. This led to the on-time delivery of a high-quality promotional video, with the AI-enhanced process saving a significant 39% in design hours and $5K for Synthego.

This collaboration underscores AI’s true value proposition in creating videos: The technology doesn’t replace human creativity; rather, it empowers creators to achieve more in less time. By streamlining workflows, automating tasks and generating content, AI creates a dynamic environment where creative video production teams can scale to meet the growing demand for high-quality video content.

Hands-On Tutorial: How to Create Videos With AI in 5 Steps

Ready to experience the magic of AI-powered video firsthand? Let’s walk you through the steps of how to make videos using AI.

Step 1: Choose the right AI video tools

AI video generators aren’t all created equal. It’s important to choose the AI video maker that best meets your specific requirements, as each offers unique features and capabilities.

Here’s a rundown of six popular AI video tools to help you create high-quality videos:

1. ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is a popular choice for AI-powered text to speech and voice cloning. The platform allows users to generate hyper-realistic voices in any language from written text descriptions. This feature can be used for various purposes, including creating voiceovers for explainer videos, marketing campaigns, social media videos or personalized greetings.

I've had multiple experiences with ElevenLabs, and it has served us well overall. Using it often involves a fair amount of trial and error to achieve the desired export quality. Despite this, I believe ElevenLabs is a valuable AI tool, albeit one that may require the expertise of a skilled engineer to fine-tune the final output.

Anja ThompsonSenior Producer at Superside

Pricing: Plans include a free option with limited capabilities. Other plans range from a starter package ($5/ month) to a package for creators ($22/month), a professional option ($99/month), and the top plan ($330/month).

2. Storyteq

This platform is designed to automate creative production for marketing and creative teams, helping them to create on-brand marketing campaigns faster across various markets and channels. The AI video generator offers features to automate the creation of videos, banners, static images and print materials, streamlining the creative workflow.

While Storyteq may not be suitable for our typical projects involving a smaller number of assets, it could be a significant asset for larger endeavors, where we're dealing with a high volume of deliverables and a fixed timeline. In such cases, Storyteq has the potential to streamline the process and significantly enhance efficiency, making it a potential game changer for our video workflow.

Anja ThompsonSenior Producer at Superside

Pricing: Storyteq offers an extensive range of license packages for creating videos, available on request.

3. Synthesia

This web-based video creator platform enables users to generate high-quality videos from scratch. Using text descriptions or video scripts only, Synthesia produces realistic videos complete with visuals and voiceovers in over 130 languages. They offer pre-generated AI presenters or the option to create custom avatars. This technology caters to a wide range of content needs, including explainer videos, social media content and other marketing materials.

Pricing: Packages include a $22/month plan for beginners (limited features) and a $67/month plan for regular creators. Pricing for enterprise customers is available on request.

4. Fliki

This AI-powered video production platform transforms written ideas into full-fledged videos. It allows users to create explainer videos, social media content and product demos by providing text descriptions, scripts and even Tweets.

Fliki leverages AI to generate visuals, add voiceovers and incorporate music or sound effects. The AI video generator supports 75 languages and over 1,300 ultra-realistic voices.

Pricing: They offer tree packages starting with a free option for beginners trying out AI video, a standard package ($21/month) for creators venturing into AI video production and a premium package ($66/month) for seasoned creators.

5. Invideo AI

This platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools for AI-powered video production. It caters to both beginners and experienced editors, and allows users to generate videos from text descriptions, complete with visuals, voiceovers and music.

Invideo AI also offers an editing suite with AI-powered features like scene detection and automated edits, streamlining the workflow for existing video content.

Pricing: Packages for this AI video generator range from a free option with limited functionality to a “Plus” package ($20/month) for beginner creators and a “Max” package ($48/month) for established creators.

6. Runway

Runway is a professional-grade video editing suite that lives within your web browser. It caters to creators wanting powerful editing tools and AI-assisted features.

The AI video generator offers traditional editing functionality, such as multi-track video and audio editing, but also goes way beyond the basics by incorporating various AI features, such as video background removal, color correction suggestions and subtitle generation.

The platform’s combination of traditional editing tools and AI-powered enhancements empowers creators to produce high-quality video content with greater efficiency.

Pricing: Packages start with a free limited service for beginners, a standard option ($12/month) for individuals and small teams, a professional option ($28/month) to access all features, an unlimited option ($76/month) for unlimited video production, and an enterprise package (price on request) for large teams creating professional videos at scale.

Step 2: Create your video prompts

Once you’ve selected the appropriate platform for your AI-generated video, the next step is to feed it a video prompt—the descriptive text you enter into the AI video generator that serves as a guideline of what you want. The better the prompt, the closer the video will be to what you envision.

A few tips on how to prompt the AI video generator:

• Opt for simple and specific: AI thrives on clear instructions. Use straightforward language and avoid overly complex sentences.
• Remember: Details matter: Share the video length, target audience, platform, desired style (funny, serious, etc.) and specific product/service details.
• Keep it concise: Be clear and avoid unnecessary words that might confuse the bot.
• Focus on key points: Summarize your message in a bullet list with supporting examples to ensure the tool captures the essence of your video.
• Avoid open-ended questions: AI may struggle with open-ended questions. Instead, frame your prompts to guide the platform toward your desired outcome.

The quality of videos generated with AI varies depending on the tool you use; newer engines often produce good videos regardless of prompt detail, but for more specific results, your prompt should include detailed guidelines.

Anja ThompsonSenior Producer at Superside

Step 3: Input your text into the AI tool

Now, it’s time to feed your description into the AI video generator. Most platforms have a dedicated interface for entering prompts. Normally, this involves a text box labeled “Prompt,” “Script” or “Description.” Some platforms also allow you to upload a pre-written video script or integrate with third-party applications for content import.

Once you’ve inserted your prompt or video script, you simply click “Generate Video” or “Create Video” to initiate the AI process. The tool will then analyze your prompt and generate a video based on your specifications.

Step 4: Customize the video settings

Most AI video tools offer customization options alongside the prompt section. These might be under separate tabs labeled “Settings,” “Customize” or “Video Options.”

The available options can vary between tools, but here are some you can expect to find:

• Video style: Some tools allow you to choose from predefined visual and video styles (e.g. cartoon, realistic, minimalistic) or offer basic controls for adjusting color palettes.
• Voiceover: You might be able to select the voiceover language, gender and tone (serious, energetic, etc.).
• Background music: Choose from pre-built music libraries or upload your own track.
• Video length: Although the prompt might influence the length of edited videos, some tools allow direct control over the final video duration.
• Output resolution: Specify the desired video resolution (e.g. 720p, 1080p, etc.) for optimal viewing experience on your chosen platform.
• Scene transition: Select the type of transitions used between scenes (e.g. fade, dissolve, cut).

Some platforms offer more advanced tools for more granular control. Some also provide video templates or presets for common video formats to streamline the customization process.

Step 5: Review and iterate for perfection

While AI is powerful, it’s far from perfect, and achieving your creative vision often requires an iterative process. Carefully review the generated video output to ensure it accurately reflects your text input and effectively communicates your message.

At this stage at Superside, we have not yet used an AI video generator capable of crafting a complete story or creating an entire video independently. Human intervention has always been necessary to refine the output into a polished final product suitable for public sharing.

Anja ThompsonSenior Producer at Superside

Pay attention to details such as visual coherence, text readability, audio quality and overall pacing. Iterate on the video as needed, making adjustments and refinements to ensure high-quality AI-generated videos that accurately portray your vision.

AI Video Technology: Looking Ahead

What can you expect from AI video tech in the next few years? Let’s take a look.

1. Challenges of AI video production

While offering exciting possibilities, AI video production faces numerous hurdles regarding technical limitations and ethical considerations.

AI models require vast amounts of high-quality training data to function effectively. This “data hunger” can be challenging, as collecting and annotating large volumes of video data can be expensive and time-consuming. Processing data demands significant computational resources, making real-time AI video generation challenging for current systems.

Generating a video is one thing; telling a well-crafted story is another. AI hasn't reached the point where it can do all of this based on a single prompt—we're still waiting to see that happen.

Anja ThompsonSenior Producer at Superside

Beyond the technical hurdles, ethical considerations loom large. AI video processing raises privacy concerns, especially if personal data is collected and manipulated during the creation process.

Additionally, biases presented in the training data can be inadvertently perpetuated by the AI, potentially leading to discriminatory or unfair representations in the generated videos. The potential for misuse of AI video generation, such as creating deepfakes for malicious purposes, is another significant concern.

2. AI is making video more inclusive and far-reaching

AI is starting to play a critical role in making videos more inclusive and accessible to wider audiences.

According to Wistia’s 2024 State of Video Report, there’s been a significant surge in using AI for video accessibility, with a 59% increase in videos receiving higher accessibility scores compared to 2023. This leap is largely driven by AI’s ability to break down language barriers and personalize content for a global audience.

AI automates caption and transcript generation, making videos accessible to viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. The report highlights a 254% increase in businesses using closed captions, demonstrating the growing adoption of this technology. This technology benefits not only those with hearing impairments but also viewers who speak different languages or prefer to follow along with text.

3. Sora

OpenAI, the innovative force behind ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, is introducing Sora—a groundbreaking AI video generator poised to revolutionize the text-to-video landscape. Anticipated for release in the second half of 2024, Sora promises to usher in a new era of AI video generation.

While text-to-video generation is nothing new, Sora transcends current solutions by establishing a new benchmark for visual quality and complexity. It surpasses its predecessors through its ability to craft highly detailed, realistic scenes.

Although you'll still need someone to craft and edit a narrative, the visuals Sora has produced in the demos we've seen are truly impressive and are essentially limited only by the user's imagination and creativity. Once Sora irons out the issues (such as the six-finger glitches), it has the potential to disrupt the stock-footage market significantly.

Anja ThompsonSenior Producer at Superside

Additionally, Sora executes intricate camera movements within generated videos, resulting in dynamic and captivating visuals that far surpass the basic panning or zooming offered by other tools.

The platform’s capacity to generate videos featuring multiple characters with emotions suggests a sophisticated understanding of human interaction and expression, potentially exceeding the capabilities of existing AI video generators.

The Superside Process for AI-Enhanced Video Creation

Creating videos with AI assistance is entirely feasible, but human involvement remains crucial to ensure the final product aligns with your brand and meets your specific needs.

Are you ready to partner with Superside and take your first step into the world of AI-enhanced video production? Book a short demo and discover a new way to produce high-quality videos reliably and affordably.

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