Any Business Can Now Create Cinematic Videos — With Just a Text Prompt

This is what we made:

Five scenes. Cinematic Ken Burns zoom. Romantic gold overlays. A CTA button at the end.

Total time: under 10 minutes. Total cost: $0. Editing skills required: none.

The only inputs were 5 iPhone photos and a paragraph of text.

Why This Changes Things for Small Businesses

Hiring a videographer and editor for a 30-second social media clip costs $500–$2,000. Per video. A monthly content calendar at that rate is simply out of reach for most restaurants, retailers, and small businesses.

Claude Code changes the equation entirely. You describe what you want in plain English. It writes the code. Remotion — a motion library built on React — renders it into a real MP4. The whole pipeline takes minutes, not weeks, and costs nothing beyond your Claude subscription.

No After Effects. No Premiere. No Canva. No agency. No waiting.

What You Need

Three things:

Claude Code — Anthropic's AI coding agent. It reads your prompt, takes your images, and generates a complete animated video component. You don't need to understand the code it writes.

Remotion — An open-source motion library that renders React components into MP4 video files. Think of it as the engine that turns Claude's output into something you can actually post.

Your own photos — Interior shots, dish photos, ambience. Shot on iPhone is completely fine. The AI handles all the cinematic treatment.

The Prompt

This is the exact prompt used to create the video above. Copy it, swap in your details, and run it in Claude Code.

I want to create a landscape Twitter/X social media video (1200x628px)
for my upscale restaurant targeting couples for a special night out.

I am uploading 5 images in this order:
- Image 1: A couple enjoying an intimate candlelit dinner
- Image 2: My signature beef dish close-up
- Image 3: Champagne or wine being poured
- Image 4: My restaurant interior or dining room
- Image 5: My salad or vegetarian signature dish

Build a cinematic TSX video component — landscape format (1200x628) —
with 5 animated scenes using these images.

Scene flow:
1. Couple dining    → "SOME NIGHTS DESERVE MORE"      / "For the ones you love"
2. Beef dish        → "CRAFTED WITH PASSION"           / "Our signature for meat lovers"
3. Champagne pour   → "CELEBRATE IN STYLE"             / "Every sip, unforgettable"
4. Dining room      → "THE STAGE IS SET"               / "An evening like no other"
5. Salad dish       → "RESERVE YOUR TABLE TONIGHT"     / CTA button: "Book Now →"

Style: deep burgundy and gold accents, dark romantic overlays,
elegant serif typography, slow cinematic Ken Burns transitions.
Feels like a luxury magazine ad.

Each scene: full-width image, dark gradient overlay, bold headline,
italic subtext in accent color, decorative gold line above headline.
No progress bar. No play/pause button.

Use Remotion's useCurrentFrame() for all animation timing.
Set FRAMES_PER_SCENE = 105 (3.5 seconds at 30fps).
Drive Ken Burns zoom, fade-in, and text slide using Remotion's
interpolate() — no requestAnimationFrame, no useEffect timers.
Fixed dimensions: 1200x628px.

Embed all 5 images as base64 directly in the TSX.
Output a single self-contained .tsx file. No external dependencies.

That's it. Paste that into Claude Code, upload your photos, and it does the rest.

Make It Yours

The prompt above is a starting point, not a constraint. Claude understands plain English — just describe your business, your look, and your goal. It adapts.

Match the colors to your brand:

Swap the scenes to tell your story:

• Your product being used or unboxed
• Your team or workspace
• A before/after result
• Your storefront, office, or event space
• A happy customer moment (with permission)

Change the CTA to match your goal:

• "Shop now →"
• "Book a free call →"
• "Register today →"
• "Visit us this weekend →"
• "DM us to get started →"

Rendering to MP4 with Remotion

Once Claude Code generates the .tsx file, Remotion turns it into a shareable video.

Setup (one time):

npx create-video@latest

Drop the file Claude gave you into the src/ folder, then wire it up in src/Root.tsx:

import { Composition } from "remotion";
import RestaurantVideo from "./RestaurantVideo";

export const RemotionRoot = () => (
  <Composition
    id="Restaurant"
    component={RestaurantVideo}
    durationInFrames={525}
    fps={30}
    width={1200}
    height={628}
  />
);

Preview in your browser:

npm run dev

Export to MP4:

npx remotion render src/index.ts Restaurant out/restaurant.mp4

Upload the file. Done.

Getting Your Photos

You don't need a professional photographer. Your phone is enough.

Products or spaces — Shoot near a window in natural light. Avoid flash. Good light does more work than any camera or editing app.

People — A team member, a happy customer (with permission), or even yourself. Candid and genuine beats stiff and posed every time.

Your environment — Capture your space before it gets busy — a tidy workspace, a fully set table, a clean storefront. Empty looks more dramatic than cluttered.

One rule that applies everywhere: The AI handles all color grading, overlays, and cinematic treatment. Your photos just need to be in focus and well-lit. That's it.

Where to Post It

One video. Every channel. Choose your orientation based on your platform.

Landscape (1200×628) — use this for:

• LinkedIn — professionals, B2B, event announcements, webinars
• Twitter/X — broad reach, news-style content, product launches
• Email campaigns — embed directly in newsletters; video in email drives 2–3× higher click rates

Vertical (1080×1920) — use this for:

• Instagram Reels — highest organic discovery of any format right now
• TikTok — younger audiences, high engagement
• Facebook & Instagram Stories — local community, repeat customers

The Bigger Picture

Any business that can produce a fresh video in 10 minutes — for a product launch, a seasonal promotion, an event announcement, a new hire — has a real advantage over one that waits weeks and spends thousands.

The content calendar that used to require a production budget now requires a phone and a prompt.

This is what Claude Code + Remotion makes possible. Not eventually. Right now.

**Grab few photos. Copy the prompt. See what you get! **

Next in this series: Webinar announcement videos and Real Estate — same workflow, completely different look and feel.