MedTravel Ad Maker#

End-to-end pipeline that produces a polished 30-second medical-tourism ad video.

What it does#

Given a destination (e.g. "Nanning, China"), a procedure (e.g. "dental implants"), and a brand name, this skill generates a complete 30-second ad with:

1. Character continuity — One AI-generated protagonist appears in all 4 shots (uses Vidu's reference2video so the same person shows up in every scene without per-shot drift).

2. Cinematic visuals — 4 storyboarded shots:

   • Pain point (high cost in patient's home country)
   • Modern destination clinic
   • Wellness recovery in scenic location
   • Triumphant outcome with brand CTA

3. AI narration — Replicate Kokoro TTS ( af_bella voice) generates per-shot voiceover, time-aligned to each scene.

4. Background music — Soft synthesized ambient pad (C-major triad, low-pass filtered, fade in/out).

5. Brand overlays — Top descriptive captions (so viewers understand the story instantly) + bottom emerald-green brand text on each shot.

6. Output — Final MP4 uploaded to your Cloudflare R2 bucket, plus all intermediate clips for re-use.

How it works#

text

Step 1: Wavespeed (Seedream 4.5) → 1 protagonist portrait → R2
Step 2: Vidu reference2video × 4 (parallel)  → 4 shot clips → R2
Step 3: Replicate Kokoro TTS × 4              → 4 narration clips
Step 4: ffmpeg concat                          → 30s silent video
Step 5: ffmpeg filter_complex                  → drawtext overlays + audio mix
Step 6: Upload final to R2

Cost & timing#

Per run (one full 30s ad):

ItemCostWavespeed Seedream 4.5 (1 portrait)$0.04Vidu viduq2-pro reference2video × 4$2.50 (250 credits)Replicate Kokoro TTS × 4~$0.001Total****~$2.55

End-to-end runtime: ~3 minutes (most time is Vidu video generation in parallel).

Required environment variables#

• VIDU_API_KEY — Vidu Platform API key ( https://platform.vidu.com)
• WAVESPEED_API_KEY — Wavespeed.ai API key (for the protagonist image)
• REPLICATE_API_KEY — Replicate token (for Kokoro TTS)
• R2_ACCOUNT_ID, R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID, R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, R2_BUCKET_NAME, R2_PUBLIC_URL — Cloudflare R2 (S3-compatible) for storage

Required system binaries#

• node (≥ 18)
• ffmpeg is bundled via the ffmpeg-static npm package — no system install needed.

Usage#

bash

# Customize the SHOTS array in make-xpilot-ad.ts with your storyboard,
# then run:
npx tsx make-xpilot-ad.ts

The script prints the final R2 URL at the end. To iterate on post-production (captions, narration, music) without re-spending Vidu credits, run:

bash

npx tsx xpilot-ad-finalize.ts

This pulls the existing 4 video clips from R2, regenerates narration, and re-composites the final video. Free and fast (~45 seconds).

Example output#

Final 30-second ad (8 MB MP4) — narration, ambient music, brand overlays: https://pub-22e3d3e3f43e400493bbd71306cae6bb.r2.dev/demo/medical-tourism-ad/v2/medtravel-final.mp4

Behind-the-scenes assets (all publicly hosted on R2):

• Protagonist reference image (Wavespeed Seedream 4.5): https://pub-22e3d3e3f43e400493bbd71306cae6bb.r2.dev/demo/medical-tourism-ad/v2/reference-protagonist.png
• Shot 1 — Sticker shock: https://pub-22e3d3e3f43e400493bbd71306cae6bb.r2.dev/demo/medical-tourism-ad/v2/shot-1-sticker-shock.mp4
• Shot 2 — Nanning clinic: https://pub-22e3d3e3f43e400493bbd71306cae6bb.r2.dev/demo/medical-tourism-ad/v2/shot-2-nanning-clinic.mp4
• Shot 3 — Bama wellness: https://pub-22e3d3e3f43e400493bbd71306cae6bb.r2.dev/demo/medical-tourism-ad/v2/shot-3-bama-wellness.mp4
• Shot 4 — Detian triumph: https://pub-22e3d3e3f43e400493bbd71306cae6bb.r2.dev/demo/medical-tourism-ad/v2/shot-4-detian-triumph.mp4

Notice the same protagonist appears in all 4 shots — that's the power of Vidu's reference2video mode, which this skill encapsulates.

Customization#

To make this skill work for a different brand/vertical (e.g., "Mexican dental tourism", "Thai cosmetic surgery", "Korean LASIK"), edit:

• REFERENCE_PROMPT — describe your protagonist
• SHOTS[*].prompt — describe each scene
• SHOTS[*].narration — what the voiceover says
• SHOTS[*].brandText — bottom brand caption
• SHOTS[*].topCaption — top descriptive caption

The pipeline (parallel submission, polling, R2 mirroring, ffmpeg composition) stays the same.

Why Reference-to-Video?#

Vidu has three video generation modes:

ModeProsConstext2videoSimpleEach shot's character looks differentimg2videoVisual continuityHard to change scenes (just continues motion)reference2video****Same character across scenesSlightly more setup

For multi-shot ads with a recurring protagonist, reference2video is the only mode that works. This skill encapsulates that workflow.

Known gotchas (saved you the debugging time)#

1. Vidu CloudFront URLs contain unencoded ; — don't URL-encode it, that breaks the signature. Mirror to R2 immediately.
2. OpenAI / OpenRouter quotas run out fast — this skill uses Replicate Kokoro instead, which is dirt cheap.
3. Replicate rate-limits accounts under $5 credit to 6 req/min — script adds 11s delays between TTS calls.
4. ffmpeg drawtext apostrophe escaping is unreliable — use full words instead ("should not" instead of "shouldn't").
5. ffmpeg drawtext % is parsed as variable — escape or use words ("60 percent").
6. Multiple drawtext filters with commas in text break with , separator — use ; + intermediate labels instead.