Minimax (Hailuo) AI Video Generator

We created the below youtube short to demonstrate the use of Hailuo Minimax. We used static images of 1920’s climber Sandy Irvine and loaded them up into Hailuo Minimax using a free user account. We then tied the clips together in video editing tool CapCut. Check it out, we are quite happy with the result!

As of the time of writing Hailuo Minimax offer a free account option that gives you 100 credits per day. With that you have the ability to generate three videos at the length of six seconds. Each video generated uses up 30 credits. You can purchase a subscription to increase your credits.

How Minimax works

Hailuo Minimax's image-to-video AI simplifies video creation by letting you animate an existing image.

Here's how the workflow works:  

1. Upload a high-resolution image: This will be the base for your video.

   For the example above I used old jpeg images of Sandy Irvine

2. Write a detailed prompt: Describe the desired animation and camera movements. Be specific! For example, instead of "make it move," say "the camera slowly zooms in while the person waves their hand."

   The prompt we used was ‘handsome young man, smiling, confident’ in many old photos people tended not to smile. I think seeing them smile really brings them back to life and gives you a sense of what their character may have been.

3. Generate the video: Hailuo's AI will process your image and prompt to create a dynamic video.  

   I enabled the prompt optimizer. I found that this tends to yield better results. If I’m not happy with the result, I try again but disable it.

Essentially, you provide the starting point and creative direction, and the AI handles the animation and camera work. The key is to use clear and detailed prompts to achieve your desired outcome.

Editing the Minimax video clips in Capcut

After downloading the video clips from Minimax I created a new project in Capcut (video editor) https://www.capcut.com/

Workflow:

1. Create a new video project

2. Upload original images and Minimax video clips into Capcuts Media folder.

3. Drag the original image and video clip into the timeline.

4. Connect the image and video clip with a transition effect (I used Crackling).

5. I added a Fade Out and Fade In Animation to the images and video clips to give a smooth transition effect between them.

6. And repeat for all remaining images and video clips.

7. For the transition effect between the video and the next image I used Black Fade.

8. I added a magic sound effect for all the Crackling transition effects

9. I then finally added background music using Capcuts audio, making sure the filter included Commercial use only (so I can upload the final product to Youtube). The track I used is titled ‘Peaceful and Majestic’.

10. Export