Imagine for a moment the cost of producing a
high -quality professional 30 -second video.
What do you think that would typically set you
back? Well, with what we're about to dig into,
maybe just 13 cents. 13 cents, wow. You know,
when I first heard that, I almost didn't believe
it. That really does feel like a huge shift,
like a seismic shift underway in how we create
video. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Yeah, today
we're plunging into this remarkable world of
automated AI video production. We're talking...
unbelievably low costs, totally transforming
how we think about content. So our mission on
this deep dive really is to unpack how a new
AI model, it's called C -Dance, when you combine
it with smart automation platforms like NEN.
How it's making professional looking video content,
well, practically free for pretty much everyone.
Exactly. We'll kind of compare the old costs
to this new reality, lay out the blueprint for,
you know, building your own AI studio, explore
each department, if you will, of this automated
setup. And then, yeah, crucially, look at the
final budget and what this all means, the big
implications for creators and businesses everywhere.
OK, so let's set the scene a bit. Think back
just a few years, maybe even just like months
ago. If you wanted a high -quality video, you
weren't just grabbing your phone, right? Oh,
no way. You had to invest in a good camera, often
thousands of dollars. Then came the lights, the
microphones. You'd spend hours shooting, probably,
followed by days hunched over some complex editing
software, painstakingly piecing clips together,
adding sound, fiddling with colors. The time,
the money, the expertise needed. It was, well,
significant. That really was the old world. Yeah.
Then, you know, the first wave of AI videos started
arriving. Companies like Google, they unveiled
these powerful models. Take VO3, for instance.
They were kind of like these exclusive Hollywood
studios. They could produce stunning, really
cinematic clips that were like impossible before
without massive budgets and crews. But much like
those big studios, the cost kept them out of
reach for most people. It was really a tool for
big corporations. Right. But now. It feels like
the entire landscape has just been turned upside
down. And here's where it gets really interesting,
I think. A new player, this AI video model called
Seedence, has entered the scene. Think of it
maybe as a brilliant, really efficient independent
film studio that just opened up down the street.
And according to the most respected industry
benchmarks, its films are actually better than
the ones coming out of those big Hollywood AI
studios. And here's the bombshell, yeah. The
seismic shift that changes absolutely everything.
This new studio. It's not just better. It's 25
times cheaper. This isn't just, you know, an
incremental update. This is a complete revolution.
It's like going from hand -cranked engines straight
to electric cars overnight. That's incredible.
So when you look back at that old landscape of
professional video. What's the single biggest
barrier you feel this new model just absolutely
shattered like overnight? Oh, without a doubt,
it's the monumental barrier of cost for decades.
Right. High quality video was just inaccessible
for most people. It was a luxury for those with
huge budgets. That gate has just been blown wide
open. So. Connecting this to the biggle picture,
how do we really know seed ends is better than,
say, a powerhouse like Google's VO3? Well, the
answer comes from the system called the Arena
ELO rankings. Ah, right. Like think of it maybe
like the ranking system in professional chess,
but for AI models instead. Exactly. They show
two AI models to a human voter who picks which
one did a better job. based on a prompt, but
they don't know which model made which video.
So it's a proper blind taste test. Over 20 ,000
matchups, I think. Yeah, a huge number. And after
tens of thousands of these head -to -head matchups,
Seedance has officially, you know, dethroned
VO3. People consistently and crucially, without
bias, prefer Seedance's video quality, the coherence,
the artistic style. And what's fascinating here,
right, is that a new champion that's slightly
better, that's just an interesting development,
but a champion that's better and exponentially
cheaper, that's the revolution. Okay, so let's
talk numbers then, because they really are the
heart of this story, aren't they? When you actually
integrate these models into an automation workflow,
the costs are just staggering in their difference.
They really are. So Google's VO3, it charges
a pretty staggering $0 .75 per second of generated
video. CDance at 720p resolution is just $0 .06
per second. That's over 12 times cheaper already.
But it gets even wilder. At 480p resolution,
CDance is an almost unbelievable $0 .003 per
second. Wow. Yeah. That's 25 times cheaper than
the previous market leap. Okay, let's put that
in real world terms for you listening. Imagine
you want to create a 30 -second video clip, maybe
for social media, TikTok, whatever. With VO3,
that single clip would cost you $22 .50. With
CDance, the exact same 30 -second clip costs
you just $0 .90. 96. I mean, for the price of
one video from that old, expensive studio, you
can now produce 25 films with your new independent
setup. Whoa. Yeah, imagine being able to A -B
test dozens of video ad concepts, right? Or scaling
your content creation to target these, like,
ultra -niche audiences all for pennies. We're
already seeing things like new AI -powered ASMR
channels pop up, reaching millions of views with
just a handful of videos built entirely with
these kinds of automated systems. Yeah. The barrier
to entry for truly ambitious content is just,
well, it's gone. So beyond just saving money,
which is obviously huge, what's the actual sort
of seismic shift this enables for, say, a solo
creator? Or maybe even a small team. It fundamentally
unlocks strategies previously just reserved for
big corporations. OK, now that we kind of grasp
the sheer scale of this change, let's talk practicalities.
How do you actually build this studio? You know,
how do you harness this incredible power? Right.
So you build your own automated film studio using
a platform like NAN. Think of an NEN workflow
as like a digital assembly line. It connects
different tools and services so they work together
automatically without needing to write any code,
which is key for most people. Our AI film studio
workflow, you can basically break it down into
four distinct departments, you could say. Each
one's responsible for a different part of the
production process. Okay, so the first one is
the writer's room. This handled the initial creative
spark, the input. This is where your video ideas
are born and kind of shaped up. Then you've got
the sound stage. This handles the clip generation.
Here, the AI director takes those ideas and actually
shoots the video scenes. Following that is the
sound department for sound generation, where
a specialized audio AI adds all the effects and
music. Right. And then finally, the editing bay.
This is where a master editor AI takes all the
film scenes and the audio and just assembles
them into a single polished final cut. So each
department handles a different, pretty crucial
part of the whole production. Yeah, exactly.
So what's the big advantage, you think, of structuring
this workflow into these distinct, almost like
modular departments? Well, I think it effectively
mirrors how a traditional studio works, right?
Yeah. Which makes what could be really complex
automation feel much more manageable and... Clear.
So every great film, it starts with a great idea,
right? And our automated studio is really no
different. The whole process kicks off in the
writer's room where, interestingly, two AI agents
actually collaborate to generate this potentially
endless supply of creative concepts. Yeah. The
first agent acts as the ideas agent. You could
call it the head writer or maybe the showrunner.
Yeah. Its job is basically to come up with core
concepts for your videos based on some general
theme you give it, like, say, relaxing nature
scenes or. daily historical facts, something
like that. And it doesn't just output a single
sentence, right? It creates a complete production
brief, all structured in a way that the next
AI can easily understand. Think of it like a
really detailed, standardized recipe card for
the video. So for example, it might generate
crimson titanium shaped like a chestwork is cut
cleanly in two, and then give a corresponding
environment and sound prop too. And crucially,
I think, once the head writer develops a core
concept, it's automatically logged straight into
a Google Sheet. This sounds simple, but it's
a critical organizational step. It stops the
AI from generating the same idea twice, lets
you track the production status, and just gives
you a complete overview of your entire content
pipeline. Definitely. Then we have the prompts
agent. This acts more like the screenwriting
team. Its job is to take that single core idea
and expand it out into multiple detailed scene
descriptions or prompts to make the video dynamic.
So from that titanium chest rook slice idea,
it might generate three distinct scene prompts
like... Macro shot, a dense orange burnished
copper gear lies flat on a graphite slab. Or
extreme close -up, an aluminum cube rests on
frosted glass. You know, honestly, even with
all these structured prompts, I still wrestle
with prompt drift myself sometimes. Making sure
the AI truly captures the nuance of the initial
idea can still be a bit tricky. Interesting.
So beyond just generating more raw ideas, what's
the core benefit then of having two distinct
AI agents working almost in tandem like this
in the writer's room? They ensure you get both
those high -level thematic ideas and the necessary
detailed scene descriptions. Okay, so with the
scripts written, production scheduled in our
spreadsheet, it's time for the magic, right,
on the soundstage. This is where the technical
build happens, turning those words into actual
visuals. Right. So first, we intelligently bundle
those three scene prompts into a single dataset.
It just makes it easier to handle. Then comes
directing with C -Dance. This is really the heart
of our studio. We use N8n to send our prompts
over to wavespeed .ai, which acts kind of like
an app store for AI models. It gives us super
easy access to C -Dance. We configure it for,
say, a 9 .16 aspect ratio, perfect for vertical
videos like TikTok or YouTube Shorts, and tell
it to make 10 -second clips. Gotcha. So after
this step, our films are basically silent movies,
right? No. Just the visuals. Correct. Totally
silent. So next we introduce the sound department,
which is powered by MM Audio via another service,
Fel .ai. This AI is a master of Foley, you know,
the art of creating realistic sound effects like
footsteps or leaves rustling or glass breaking
and just general sound design. It actually analyzes
the video clips and automatically layers them
with appropriate realistic sound effects. And
the cost here, only about zero one cents per
second of audio. We then briefly group the videos
together again just to prepare them for the next
stage. Okay. And finally, the editing bay. Yep,
the final cut. For editing, we use FFmpeg, again
via ale .ai. FFmpeg is this incredibly powerful
open -source tool, kind of like the Swiss Army
knife of video manipulation. It stitches our
three 10 -second clips into one seamless 30 -second
video and layers in that audio we just generated.
The cost here is, well, it's essentially negligible.
Less than a hundredth of a cent per calculated
second. Basically free. And for smooth operation,
the studio logistics are crucial. We have to
build in these strategic pauses, maybe of a few
minutes after video generation, a minute after
sound is added, just to make sure each AI department
has fully finished its complex task before the
next step kicks off. It just keeps the whole
assembly line running smoothly. Plus, of course,
you'll set up your API keys for services like
Wavespeed .ai and Foul .ai within N8n's secure
credentials area. Right. Makes sense. And the
very last step, then, to complete our automated
studio workflow. Logging the final video link
right back into our Google Sheets spreadsheet.
Closing the loop. So how critical are those strategic
pauses, those wait periods you mentioned, within
this whole automated workflow? Oh, they're absolutely
essential for seamless operation. They basically
ensure each AI department fully finishes its
task. Mid -role sponsor, read placeholder, content
to be provided separately. Okay, so pulling it
all together. What does this all mean? What's
the final budget look like for our 30 second
high quality video produced by this automated
film studio? Let's just recalculate quickly.
So clip generation, our director, that's three
10 second clips at zero dollars or three cents
per second. Total zero nine cents, nine cents.
Sound generation from the sound department adds
30 seconds of audio at zero one cents per second.
So it's another dollars or three cents, three
cents. And the video stitching by our editor,
as we said, essentially negligible, less than
a single cent. Two sec silence. So our total
production cost comes out to approximately $0
.13 per 30 second video. Less than the price
of like a single piece of candy. Consider that
for a second. When you compare this to the $22
.50 it would cost with previous AI tools like
VO3, the scale of this disruption just becomes
crystal clear, doesn't it? You're not just saving
a little bit of money here. You're really operating
in a completely different economic reality. It
really is the democratization of the moving image.
Yeah. Seedense represents this huge paradigm
shift, making high quality video content genuinely
accessible to everyone on a scale that was, frankly,
previously unimaginable. So what are the profound
implications then for creators, for businesses?
What is this unlock that was simply out of reach
before? Well, it unlocks strategies previously
reserved only for like. multi -million dollar
media companies right you can now realistically
create and post new unique video content daily
maybe even hourly that's content at scale you
can absolutely dominate niches by targeting very
specific audiences with tailored videos all running
on autopilot and maybe most powerfully you can
perform massive a b testing imagine running dozens
even hundreds of variations of a marketing video
to find the perfect message without completely
breaking the bank it sounds like a fantastic
win for creators really democratizing things.
But I wonder Does this also pose any challenges
for, you know, the human element in video production?
What happens to the roles of traditional videographers
or editors or even concept artists when AI can
handle so much so effectively at such an incredibly
low cost? That's a that's a really important
question. Yeah. And while Sedans currently has
limitations, you know, like a lack of native
voice generation, a cap on clip duration, those
feel like temporary hurdles. Honestly, the overarching
trend is just undeniable. AI model costs are
plummeting. while their quality is soaring. And
this puts immense pressure on competitors like
Google and OpenAI to slash prices and improve
quality. It's accelerating this race to the bottom
for cost and to the top for quality. And that's
a race where creators and consumers are ultimately
the winners. The human element, I think it shifts.
It shifts away from the manual labor maybe towards
the strategic oversight, the truly creative direction,
the initial spark. Beyond just the astounding
cost savings, which are obviously massive, what
do you think is the truly transformative impact
of this technology on the very nature of content
creation itself? I think it really boils down
to unprecedented scale, hyper niche targeting
and incredibly rapid iteration. OK, so to recap
our deep dive today, high quality AI video production.
It's no longer a luxury just for big studios.
It's now genuinely accessible and affordable
for virtually anyone, thanks to these innovations
like CDANCE and automation platforms like NEN.
Exactly. And this isn't just about saving money.
It's really a complete redefinition of the creative
and business possibilities. We're seeing the
end of an era defined by those high costs and
technical barriers and maybe the dawn of a new
one defined by creativity, strategy and just
raw accessibility. So here's a thought to leave
you with. If the cost and the technical barriers
to professional video creation are truly gone
or rapidly disappearing. What entirely new forms
of visual storytelling or marketing might emerge
that we can't even imagine yet? Consider what
personal or professional projects this might
unlock for you. Thank you for joining this deep
dive. Until next time, keep exploring.