1114 – Now you can clone yourself: Tom talks Video Clone First Try

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Summary – Episode 1114: Video Clone First Try
Tom Antion shares his first experience creating an AI video clone and explains how beginners can get started effectively.
He introduces tools like HeyGen (for video avatars) and ElevenLabs (for voice cloning), emphasizing that combining both allows you to produce high-quality videos without needing to film yourself each time. This can dramatically reduce friction in content creation and increase output.
A major improvement in the technology is HeyGen’s “Avatar 5,” which reduces setup from a difficult 3-minute continuous recording (for each outfit/background) to a simple 15-second clip recorded once. The system can then generate different looks, settings, and videos automatically.
Tom provides practical tips for getting the best results:
• Use strong, even lighting—this is critical
• Record from the waist up so hand gestures are visible
• Be energetic and expressive (it’s easier to tone down than amplify)
• Keep your head steady (avoid swaying)
• Start with lips closed briefly for better syncing
• Position the camera slightly above eye level for a more flattering angle
• Background and outfit are less important than clear facial visibility
He also notes that your initial recording doesn’t have to be perfect—you can easily redo it.
Beyond cloning, he highlights HeyGen’s AI “video agent,” which can generate scripts, visuals, and captions automatically from simple prompts or website inputs. His planned workflow is:
1. Use a custom AI “brain” to generate scripts
2. Edit the script
3. Create voice audio (via ElevenLabs or HeyGen)
4. Combine audio with the avatar in HeyGen to produce videos
Overall, Tom sees video cloning as a powerful, low-cost tool (~$29/month) for scaling content creation—especially for short-form videos, marketing, and automation—while maintaining a personal presence without constant filming.

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Episode 1114 – Video Clone First Try
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1114 of Screw the Commute podcast. Let's see. Today I'm taking you along on the journey with me. Today's going to be my video clone first try. And I know this is an audio podcast, but you can go to the show notes and you'll see my first try at a video clone. And I'm going to give you instructions today and, and good pro tips on how to do the best you can, even though I'm still improving mine. You usually don't get perfection on the first try on these things. And this is coupled with my last episode, 1113, on the audio clone side of it. So you can have super high quality audio tied to a super high quality video clone of yourself. And then wow, if you crank these out, you don't have to have a good hair day. You can just really plaster stuff that you've probably been hesitating on because they're too much hassle. So it's really worth it to get this going. All right. Make sure you pick up a copy of my automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Free version 3.0 is the latest, however, short keys in it that I've been promoting for many years is now a browser extension rather than a standalone program.
[00:01:53] And also check out my mentor program, greatInternetMarketingtraining.com, where we'll give you a one on one help with all this? Nobody at my level even talked to you. All right. And it's the longest running ever and most successful mentor program of its kind. All right then, my school, IMTCVA.org. Actually, the ad for the school was my first video clone try. So you'll see that it's only about 37 seconds, but it's really worth a trip. Over to the show notes at episode 1114, you can just go to screwthecommute.com/1114, and that will take you to the website and that episode that'll have this sample clone on there.
[00:02:40] All right. Let's get into it on how you actually do this. The best quality, most cost effective program for this is called HEYGEN. I recently took a course on this clone production stuff I had been seeing and working with Hey Jan and 11 labs prior to this, but I thought I could get some extra tips, which I did on this course. I took on it. But anyway, it. Hey, Jan got into this at a really good time and you are too. If you decide to do this. Because in the past you had to do a three minute audio or excuse me, video sample.
[00:03:29] You can't stop in the middle of it. There's no do overs. And then that you had to do that for each outfit of a look that you wanted. So if you wanted your suit, you had to do your suit. If you wanted to do more casual, you did a more casual and did it over and over and over for all these different looks. Well, they have and that was three minutes. You know, you had to just keep talking and gesturing and everything. For each outfit and each background that you wanted to be in. You know, crazy hard. Well, this has gone by the wayside with this new thing that they've come out called avatar five, where you only have to do 15 seconds one time, and then it'll put you in different outfits and it'll put you in different backgrounds and everything. Just crazy, crazy, crazy. Easier than it would have been when we were doing the the three minute samples. All right, now here's some tips on what you want to do to get the best out of this. You really want to have good lighting. It's really, really important to have good lighting. Now you can use your webcam. You can use your cell phone. You can use a dSLR or a fancier camera, but it's not. And of course, the higher quality, the better, more pixels that they have to choose from.
[00:05:01] You'll get a little higher quality out put, but your cell phone will shoot at 4K, which is awesome. All right. So so you don't have to get any super fancy stuff, but you really want to have good lighting, and you should start with something from the waist up so that you can see your hands like sitting at a desk and you can gesture normally, or you could sit on a couch or something like that. You know, we're not talking about full body here at this point. Remember, I've only done one of these and and I'm not an expert at it, but I'm just reporting you and taking you along on the ride with me. So from the waist up and really good lighting, so your, you know, your whole face can be seen because we're not, they're not using this particular 15 seconds in any of your videos. They're using it to show your gestures and your face movement and your lips, which are going to be synced with the audio. So it's not a critical what background you have or or what outfit you're wearing, as long as they can clearly see your face. What they do is they, they give you a countdown on the screen. And then you just read this very simple thing for about 15 seconds and stop.
[00:06:24] And that's, that's the whole thing right there. All right. But here's here's these are some of the pro tips. You got to really have your face lit well. And you know, even I had the one that you're going to see, I had no makeup on. And so if you're going to do this and it's going to be used for hundreds and hundreds of other videos and things you might want to do makeup, you ladies probably would do it anyway. But the guys you can see on the sample that I did, I didn't have any makeup on And my face had some freckles and some blotches, and I was probably, you know, a little bit red from running the dogs or something. So. So it's not the best quality one and it won't be my finished one. I'll do it again because you can just shoot another one for 15 seconds after you get the proper, you know, makeup. Or if you weren't happy with the lighting or something. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to shoot three minutes continuously, just 15 seconds. All right. So anyway, start from the waist up so they can see your hand gestures and then be overly expressive in your 15 seconds. They can always tone it down. But if you shoot a boring like really low key, it's very, it's much more difficult to ramp it up.
[00:07:44] Okay, so be very expressive, like almost over the top, expressive with your facial expressions and your voice, excitement and all that. And let's see gesture normally, you know, don't think about it just but let your hands be seen in the video. Now another thing that I'm guilty of in like when I do Zoom calls is I kind of sway forward and backwards. Well, force yourself for 15 seconds to just sit still and just only use your facial, uh, in your head movements normally, but don't sway forward and backward towards the camera that that can mess, mess it up and start the first, second or two, just roughly the first second with your lips closed. It needs to, to see what your lips look like when they're closed. And then just speak normally after that. But remember expressive and you know, higher energy and your background does not matter. You know, it shouldn't be crazy. Like big zebra pattern right on the back of your head. But but it really doesn't matter as much because they're looking for movement of your head and your lips and your face and so forth. So don't worry too much about that. Now, here's another really good tip is get put the camera or your webcam or your cell phone, whatever you're shooting with slightly above your eye level. So that kind of thins out your face a little bit.
[00:09:25] When you shoot low to high, it makes things bigger. And when you shoot high to low, it makes things smaller, but you don't want to shoot too high, too low because you'll look like a horse. Pretty much. So just slightly above eye level. And the, the video that you're going to see if you go over to the show notes for this episode, screwthecommute.com/1114, was completely made inside HeyGen. So they have one part of it called a video agent. And this will make motion graphics. And, you know, you give it a prompt like you do on other AI stuff. You say, hey, I want to be sitting here doing this. And, uh, here's some information about like my school and what I want to promote on this particular video. And it just made up. It's called agentic type videos. I think that's pronunciation of it where it knows your intent. I mean, it's kind of creepy really, but I gave it information. I just gave it actually two websites that had a lot of the information about my school and it pulled it out and used it in the and wrote the script for the video. Right. So and made all the graphics and everything. So it did take me a couple tries because I forgot to put the captions. It'll also put captions on because most people scroll without their audio on.
[00:10:58] So it put captions, you know, but I forgot to put them on the first version. So I went and did it again and put the captions on. And so just an amazing program for the cost. It was, you know, some really ungodly low cost, I think is $29 a month or something, but it's not for unlimited. So you couldn't do 500 videos, you know, use up a certain amount of credits. But I'll tell you what, if you want to really expand your reach for, especially for short videos and reels and stories, that's extremely easy. But this particular program with the avatar five model, which is their newest one, is very stable. So you can do longer videos with it too. And the workflow is going to be for me is to. I built a custom brain with my different types of knowledge like protection dogs and public speaking and you know, that kind of stuff. And then that custom brain is going to write the script, and then I'm going to edit the script to make sure it doesn't say stupid stuff. And then of course, it's based on my brain. So. So it might, and then 11 labs is going to turn that into an audio. And then that audio is going to be given to HeyGen, you don't have to do the 11 labs.
[00:12:25] HeyGen has its own audio clone that you can do right through it. But 11 labs is just considered the gold standard. But the, the one inside, hey, Jen is darn good too. I got to tell you, it sounds it sounded just like me when I tried it. And then I'm going to put that audio file and tie it with some form of me sitting at a desk or me sitting on a couch, or me outside, leaning on a railing with a over the ocean. I mean, just you can put yourself anywhere and then it'll kick it out and the. You'll be amazed when you see the. The lip sync with this first. My first try without even knowing what the heck I'm doing. So. So go over there and take a look at it. And then if you want help with this and the other million things that I've got 32 years experience doing online, check it out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school with IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV. That's the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning. All right. Go over there and take a peek at that 37 second video. And I think you're going to be impressed for a first try on this. All right. Catch you on the next episode. See you later.