--- name: Creator PiP Listicle Render slug: creator-pip-listicle-render category: Automation description: Automatically assembles picture-in-picture product-listicle video ads from config and AI-generated creator clips. The creator stays full-frame with overlaid title, demo, and product card. Use for creating short video ads in a listicle format. github: "https://github.com/gooseworks-ai/goose-skills/tree/main/skills/ads/capabilities/render-creator-pip-listicle" language: Python stars: 1066 forks: 194 install: "git clone https://github.com/gooseworks-ai/goose-skills" added: 2026-07-20T06:49:33.203Z last_synced: 2026-07-29T06:37:33.257Z canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/creator-pip-listicle-render" --- # Creator PiP Listicle Render Automatically assembles picture-in-picture product-listicle video ads from config and AI-generated creator clips. The creator stays full-frame with overlaid title, demo, and product card. Use for creating short video ads in a listicle format. **Install:** `git clone https://github.com/gooseworks-ai/goose-skills` ## README # render-creator-pip-listicle Assemble a **creator picture-in-picture product listicle** ad from a config: an AI creator counts down N products in the brand's own voice, and **the creator stays FULL-FRAME the whole time — there is NO cut to a full-frame product shot, ever.** On each product beat, three persistent overlays ride on top of the full-frame creator for the WHOLE beat: (1) a **title pill** top-center (persistent, it carries the listicle title), (2) the **DEMO** in a rounded **PiP window top-right** — the brand's real UGC clip (MUTED), or for a no-UGC brand the product's own demo (a real screen-recording, or an autocropped high-res product-UI/dashboard still sized to fill the window), and (3) a **product card** pinned bottom (rounded thumbnail left + "N · CATEGORY" small-caps + product NAME in a serif face like Georgia). Hook + CTA beats are the creator full-frame with the **title pill only** (no PiP/card). The creator's voice + lips are generated **together, natively** per beat — there is no separate voiceover. This capability is the **FREE, deterministic assembly** — build the per-beat overlay PNG, cover-scale the creator clip + composite the overlay, concat all beats, and burn the captions. `scripts/config.example.json` is the worked example (DIBS Beauty "5 products that replaced my whole makeup bag", ~46s 1080×1920 9:16, a hook + 5 product beats + a CTA); `scripts/PIPELINE.md` maps every config block to its source step and `scripts/README.md` documents the free assembly. ## Run This is the **FREE, deterministic** assembly stage — it spends nothing beyond the caption burn. The paid inputs are separate capabilities — the creator anchor (`create-image-fal`, **Seedream v5 Pro**, model `bytedance/seedream/v5/pro/text-to-image` with **no `fal-ai/` prefix**) and one native Seedance talking clip per beat (`create-video-fal`, model `bytedance/seedance-2.0/reference-to-video`, `generate_audio=ON`, the SAME seed across beats so the face holds, 720p default). Given those native clips + the brand's real UGC demo clips (or the product's own autocropped UI stills / screen recordings) + the real product photos + the brand palette + the title copy, `render-creator-pip-listicle` builds ONE full-1080×1920 transparent overlay PNG per beat (title pill always; + demo PiP top-right + bottom product card + rank number on product beats), cover-scales the creator clip to 1080×1920 and overlays the beat's overlay PNG for the **whole beat** while keeping the native audio, concats all beats, and burns the captions last → the master. Re-cuts reuse the existing native clips + overlays and cost **$0**. **Anchor gotcha (Seedream v5 Pro, not gpt-image-2/Seedream-v4).** Seedance 2.0's partner-validation gate REJECTS photoreal faces from **gpt-image-2 AND Seedream v4** ("may contain likenesses of real people"); a **Seedream v5 Pro** face passes. Generate a **FRESH** anchor with `create-image-fal`, model `bytedance/seedream/v5/pro/text-to-image` (no `fal-ai/` prefix) — reusing an existing photoreal face from another project also trips the gate. **Clip gotchas (Seedance 2.0).** A **REJECTED submit STILL bills** via the fal-proxy — **pre-flight ONE test clip (the hook)** and confirm it renders before firing the batch. Presigned anchor URLs expire ~1h → re-host the anchor if a batch runs long (else "Failed to download the file" mid-batch). The intermittent fal "User is locked: Exhausted balance" is the proxy's upstream fal account (not your GooseWorks credits) → retry with backoff. ## Contract (the free assembly) - **Creator FULL-FRAME the whole beat — NO cut to a full-frame product shot.** Every beat is ONE continuous full-frame creator clip; the product content lives in overlays, never in a full-frame cutaway. `per_beat_shots = 1`. - **Native creator audio carries the reel — no separate VO.** Each beat's voice + lips come from ONE Seedance take (`generate_audio=ON`); this stage never adds a VO or a lip-sync pass. The creator clip's native audio plays continuous across the whole beat; the demo PiP's audio is **muted** (else the voice doubles). - **Three persistent overlays on each product beat.** For the WHOLE beat, on top of the full-frame creator: (a) the **title pill** top-center (persistent, `title_pill.on=true` — carries the listicle title, kept short to fit one line); (b) the **DEMO PiP** top-right; (c) the **product card** bottom. Hook + CTA carry the **title pill only**. - **The DEMO PiP is autocropped to FILL its window.** It's the brand's **REAL UGC clip** (MUTED, never AI-regenerated) — OR, for a brand with **NO UGC** (B2B/SaaS), the product's own demo: a real screen-recording, or an **AUTOCROPPED** high-res product-UI/dashboard still. Autocrop the still (trim transparent/near-white margins) and size the PiP window to the cropped content's aspect ratio so it **fills the window — no letterbox whitespace**; a **WIDE screenshot → a SHORT + WIDE window**, a tall/square one → a taller window. Rounded window, white hairline border, soft drop shadow, top-right. Disclose in the review when the demo is a still/mockup rather than a real UGC clip. - **Products are REAL photos — never AI-render the product.** The bottom product card (rounded thumbnail + "N · CATEGORY" small-caps + product NAME in a serif face like Georgia) comes from the brand's real product photo / UI thumbnail; a product with no clean photo falls back to a brand-color tile with the wordmark, never an AI product render. - **Persistent title pill, rank number on the card.** The title pill is persistent top-center (this format's identity, on by default). A counting rank number (1..N) is rendered on the product **card** on product beats. - **Captions burned LAST as PIL PNG overlays, brand-accent, deterministic.** This ffmpeg has **no libass** → render each ~2-word cue as a timed PIL PNG overlay (`overlay=…:enable='between(t,s,e)'`): white words + a brand-accent underline, black stroke for legibility, positioned **CLEAR of the PiP (top) and the card (bottom)** (mid-to-lower band). Time them **DETERMINISTICALLY from the known per-beat script** — the fal-ai/whisper proxy is unreliable (900s timeouts); do NOT depend on it. The known script is the brand-correct source, so brand tokens are always spelled right. - **FFmpeg composite, deterministic, FREE.** Per beat: build ONE full-1080×1920 transparent overlay PNG (title pill; + PiP + card + rank number on product beats), cover-scale the creator clip to 1080×1920, overlay the PNG for the whole beat, keep the native audio. Concat all beats with the concat demuxer @ 30fps / yuv420p → a 1080×1920 h264+aac master, then burn captions last. Probe durations with `ffprobe -of csv=p=0` (NOT `-of default=nk=1:np=1`, which errors on some builds). No paid calls in the composite/stitch, no keys.