The other day I came across this page.
They have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views on their reels and have over 700,000 followers, with only 110 posts.
And they did it, by sharing cozy log cabin videos with rain falling in the background.
The crazy part is that all of their posts can be AI-generated, and are very easy to create.
I was able to create a similar-looking video in about 15 minutes using a handful of AI tools.
So today I’m going to show you how you can make these insanely viral reels in 4 easy steps.
I’ll also share some top tips at the end that will allow you to take your videos to the next level, so make sure you stick around for that.
Let’s get right to it.
Step 1: Prompt Generation
We could manually write these prompts ourselves, but instead, we’re going to use AI to make the process much more efficient.
So head over to ChatGPT.com, and type the following prompt:
“Create 10 MidJourney prompts for Instagram reels. The images should be photorealistic, have a cozy atmosphere, and feature a cozy wood room with large windows with rain pouring outside. The lens should be wide angle.”
Hit enter and let Chat GPT get to work.
Great, now we’ve got a selection of prompts that we can use in the next step.
Step 2: Text to Image Generation
Now head over to Midjourney.com. This is a paid tool, however is about $10 a month and in my opinion, is one of, if not the best image generators for these kinds of videos.
Anyway, once you’re on Midjourney, copy and paste one of the prompts ChatGPT, and set the aspect ratio to 16:9.
Now you may be thinking “wait a minute, this isn’t the right aspect ratio for Instagram, those are 9:16”.
There are a couple of reasons we want to use this aspect ratio.
Firstly, the next tool we’re going to isn’t compatible with 9:16 images.
Secondly, we want to add some camera movement to our shot, so having a image will allow us to do that when we come to edit the clip.
Hit enter and wait for MidJouney to create your images.
Decide which one you like the best, click on the image, and select the subtle upscale.
Once that’s done, you can go ahead and click download and then we’re ready to move on to the next step.
Step 3: Image to Video Generation
The next tool we’re going to use is called Runway ML. This is an AI video generator that allows us to create clips using images.
Head over to runwayml.com, click Get Started in the top right, and make an account.
You get some free credits when you sign up, so you won’t need to pay straight away and these credits should give you more than enough generations to start with.
Once you’re signed up, click text/image to video and make sure you have gen3 alpha turbo selected in the top left.
Now we can go ahead and upload our image from earlier.
Below the image copy and paste the following:
No camera movement: rain falls heavily in the background and the trees sway in the wind. The fireplace glows and flickers.
I’ve played around with a few different prompts, and this seems to give the best results. Of course, feel free to play around with the prompt and tailor it to your specific image.
Obviously, if you haven’t got a fire in your shot, you can remove that part.
Set the time to 10 seconds and click generate. Then we just need to wait a minute or two for the video to be generated.
Once your video is generated and you’re happy with the results, go ahead and click the download button and then we’re ready for the final step.
Step 4: Editing the Video
The last step is to add some movement to our shot as well as some background audio.
Given we don’t need to do too much editing, a simple, free video editor will be fine.
So with that in mind, we’re going to use CapCut to edit the video.
Head over to CapCut.com, sign up, and download their video editor.
Open up CapCut and click Create Project.
Drag in the video file we just downloaded, and then drag that onto the timeline.
Now, we want to set the dimensions to 9:16 so that it’s ready for Instagram.
Once you’ve done this, we now need to scale the clip to fit the new aspect ratio.
Select your clip, and then drag the scale to around 318%. Your clip should now fill the entirety of the frame.
Now it’s time to add some movement.
Make sure you’re this pointer is at the beginning of the timeline and your clip is selected.
Now we can move our clip to a position we want the shot to start at.
Then we can click on the position keyframe.
Now, move the pointer to the very end of your clip, move the clip to its new position, and click the keyframe button again.
This will create a nice panning effect.
Now we just need to add some rain sound effects.
Head up to audio, select sound effects, click on all, select commercial, and search for rain.
We’re going to use one of these, so we’ll click the plus button which will add the sound effect to our timeline.
Move the audio to the beginning of the timeline and we’re going to trim the sound to be the same length as the video.
All you need to do is press B, click where you want to cut the audio, and then we can delete the rest that we don’t need.
Ok, now it’s time to adjust the audio volume so that it isn’t too loud, or too quiet.
There are a couple of ways that you can adjust the volume.
- You click on your clip and drag the volume slider on the right hand side.
- You can drag the line of the clip up and down.
Either one works the same, so use whichever you prefer.
Ok, let’s go ahead and export our new reel.
Click on export at the top right of the window, give your video and name, select where you want to export your file to and you can leave the other settings as default.
Click export and then your video is ready to be shared.
Top Tips
Ok, how can we improve on our video? Well, here’s a few tips that should help.
First, is to iterate. It’s rare with AI tools that we get exactly what we’re looking for on the first try.
If you’re unhappy with your result, change your prompt to reflect the changes you want to see.
For example, if the rain isn’t falling clearly you could change the wording of the prompt to reflect this, using words like thunderstorm or downpour.
This leads me to my next tip, which is to experiment.
I know I gave you some cookie-cutter prompts that you can use, but try mixing them up and seeing what kind of results you get.
You could try adding camera movement in Runway – for example using a tracking shot.
You could even try using different types of shot in MidJourney, such as low angle or point of view shots.
When you experiment with these tools, you’ll eventually come across something that you really love and makes your video look awesome.
Well, that’s it for the guide.
I hope that you’ve found it helpful! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask away in the comment section and I’ll get back to you.
Have a good one.
