I created this creepy avatar and now I might never stand in front of a camera again

What fresh hell is this?

News By Lance Ulanoff published 9 October 2024

I've shot thousands of hours of video over the years of my career and I can tell you that it takes lots of preparation, work, and energy. I can also tell you that if you use an AI avatar video generator like HeyGen, it takes almost none of the above, and that scares the heck out of me.

With the advent of high-quality generative video, these AI video avatars are popping up everywhere. I haven't paid much attention, mostly because I like being on camera and am happy to do it for TV and social video. Even so, I know not everyone loves the spotlight and would happily hand the duties over to an avatar, and when I got a glimpse of the apparent quality of HeyGen's avatars, I was intrigued enough to give it a try. Now I honestly wish I hadn't.

HeyGen, which you can use on mobile or desktop, is a simple and powerful platform for creating AI avatars that can, based on scripts you provide, speak to the camera for you. They're useful for video presentations, social media, interactive avatars, training videos, and essentially anything where an engaging human face might help sell the topic or information.

HeyGen lets you create digital twins that can appear in relatively static videos or ones in which the other you is on the move. For my experience, I chose the 'Still' option.

Setting up another me

There are some rules for creating your avatar and I think following them as I did may have resulted in the slightly off-putting quality of my digital twin.

HeyGen recommends you start the process by shooting a video of yourself using either a professional camera or one of your best smartphones, but the video should be at least 1080p. If you use the free version as I did, you'll note that the final videos are only 720p. Upgrade later and you can start producing full HD video avatars (more on the pricing structure later).

There are other bits of guidance like using a "nice background," avoiding harsh shadows" and background noise, and a few that are key to selling the digital twin version of you. HeyGen asked that I look directly (but not creepily, I assume) at the camera, make normal (open to interpretation) gestures below chest level, and take pauses between sentences. The last bit is actually good advice for making real videos. I have a habit of speaking stream of consciousness and forget to pause and create obvious soundbites for editing.

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