Recreate Video

---
name: recreate-video
description: Rebuild a reference video as an editable animated scene that moves and looks like it - the same layout, the same timing, the same motion - measured from the video rather than eyeballed, with the user's own photos and text in place of the original's. Use when the user brings a video and wants one like it ("make a video like this one", "recreate this ad", "reuse my own ad", "copy this animation", "rebuild this promo with my product"), or carries on a recreation already under way. Not for editing or trimming the user's own footage, and not for a new video from a description alone.
metadata:
  uses: reference-fragment-matching, motion-tracking-from-video, asset-audit, motion-review, scene-building-basics, quality-review, background-music
  optional: asset-audit, motion-review, background-music
  title: Recreate a video
  short-description: Rebuild a reference video with your own photos and text
  argument-hint: '[reference video, your photos and text]'
  starter-prompt: Recreate this reference video with my own photos and text.
argument-hint: '[reference video, your photos and text]'
---

# Recreate a video

A reference video is flat pixels: nothing in it says how it was made. This use case measures it,
fragment by fragment, and rebuilds it as a scene the user can edit, with their own content. The
result reproduces what the viewer sees, not the original project.

Read picsart-video-rules first. One job: a reference video in, an editable scene that matches it out.
Measuring and checking go as reference-fragment-matching says, with no SPEND gate.
The SPENDs here are artwork or music you choose to generate.

Before acting on a stage, load the skills in its row that apply to this job, also when the work resumes there.

| Stage | Gate | Skills |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Take the reference in | ASK | — |
| 1b. Map the content to the reference's slots | ASK | — |
| 1c. Where the decorations come from | ASK, SPEND | — |
| 2. Read it and check the scope | — | reference-fragment-matching |
| 3. The fragment plan | ASK | reference-fragment-matching |
| 4. Measure each fragment | — | reference-fragment-matching, motion-tracking-from-video |
| 5. Build each fragment | — | reference-fragment-matching, asset-audit, scene-building-basics |
| 6. Check each fragment | — | reference-fragment-matching, motion-tracking-from-video, motion-review, quality-review |
| 7. Join the fragments and lay the sound | — | reference-fragment-matching, scene-building-basics, background-music |
| 8. The user reviews | REVIEW | — |
| 9. Deliver | DELIVER | — |

For generated replacements, follow picsart-video-rules's Image generation and supplied photos:
keep its image default or the user's explicit model, and pass the supplied original photo in
each replacement's actual `imageUrls`. Carry it through subsequent shots; a description or
generated character sheet alone is insufficient.

## 1. Take the reference in

ASK (with your host's own question tool, such as AskUserQuestion, so the options are buttons the user taps, the recommended one first; only where the host has none, the options numbered in one message; in unattended pace, never ask: write it to the project record's openDecisions with the answer you assumed, as picsart-video-rules says) for what is missing, in one question, with every file in one upload panel, as picsart-video-rules
says (Asset URLs):

- **the reference video**;
- **which part**, when it is longer than the part they want: a start and end time;
- **their own content** for the places the reference shows photos, clips, logos or text. Without it,
  the scene gets plain stand-ins in each of those places: a colour box of the same size, and the text
  the reference shows. Never the reference's own pixels, as the reference-fragment-matching skill says;
- **whether the reference is theirs**: their own template, ad or video. It decides the sound (below)
  and where the decorations can come from (stage 1c).

**The sound.** When the reference is theirs, its soundtrack is the default: it is laid under the
recreation from the hosted reference in stage 7. When it is not, the reference's music is someone
else's: offer no sound,
a music bed made as the `background-music` skill says (a SPEND),
or the user's own music, received with `picsart_drive_upload_ask`.

## 1b. Map the content to the reference's slots

Take stage 2's sheet of stills now and list the reference's content slots: each place
it shows a photo, a clip, a logo or a block of text, in order. Match the user's content to them.
When something does not fit, ASK (with your host's own question tool, such as AskUserQuestion, so the options are buttons the user taps, the recommended one first; only where the host has none, the options numbered in one message; in unattended pace, never ask: write it to the project record's openDecisions with the answer you assumed, as picsart-video-rules says) one question about it and recommend an answer:

- **a different count**: 4 clips for 3 photo slots, or 3 photos for 5 slots: which to drop, or which
  slot repeats;
- **a still where the reference has video**: hold the still, or give it a slow push;
- **a different shape**: a portrait photo in a landscape slot: crop to the slot, or fit inside it.

## 1c. Where the decorations come from

Decorations are what is not content: stickers, doodles, badges, shapes, frames. ASK (with your host's own question tool, such as AskUserQuestion, so the options are buttons the user taps, the recommended one first; only where the host has none, the options numbered in one message; in unattended pace, never ask: write it to the project record's openDecisions with the answer you assumed, as picsart-video-rules says) once, for all of
them, with a recommendation:

- **cut from the reference**, recommended when the reference is theirs, as reference-fragment-matching
  says;
- **redrawn as vectors** from the stills: the only route when the reference is not theirs and
  nothing is generated;
- **the user's own artwork**, a cut-out PNG or SVG they send with `picsart_drive_upload_ask`;
- **generated** with `picsart_generate` on an image model: the only route that always charges, so
  it is a SPEND, quoted for every decoration at once as picsart-video-rules says.

## 2. Read it and check the scope

`picsart_media_probe` on the reference for its size, frame rate and duration, and a sheet of
stills across it with `picsart_media_video_stills`. From the stills, decide whether it is within
what reference-fragment-matching can rebuild. When it is not, say what of it can and cannot be
rebuilt, and stop unless the user still wants it.

## 3. The fragment plan

Split the reference and take the global census as the reference-fragment-matching skill says.
Then show the user the plan in plain words:
the fragments in order, each with its window and what happens in it, and the elements that recur.
ASK (with your host's own question tool, such as AskUserQuestion, so the options are buttons the user taps, the recommended one first; only where the host has none, the options numbered in one message; in unattended pace, never ask: write it to the project record's openDecisions with the answer you assumed, as picsart-video-rules says) once whether it is right. A fragment the user merges, splits or drops changes the plan before
any measuring starts.

**The plan is the project record.** Where the host gives you files, keep it as `recreation.md` in
the working folder, with the beat tables, the boundary records and every check; otherwise keep it
in the conversation. Update it whole as each fragment lands.

## 4. Measure each fragment

The census and the measured beat table for each fragment, as reference-fragment-matching says, each
kind of change on its own route there, with the tracking done as motion-tracking-from-video says.
Start every job a fragment needs before following any.

## 5. Build each fragment

Build it as reference-fragment-matching and scene-building-basics say, from the beat table only. A beat with no
measured row is not built: measure it first.

## 6. Check each fragment

Check it against the reference as reference-fragment-matching says, and check the scene as
quality-review says. The fix rounds are picsart-video-rules's.
A fragment that still misses after them goes on, and its gap goes into the plan in plain words
("the card docks 0.2 s late").

## 7. Join the fragments and lay the sound

Join them and check the whole clip as reference-fragment-matching says (`references/seams.md` there).
Then lay the sound decided in stage 1. The reference's soundtrack goes on an audio layer, as
scene-building-basics says, starting where the chosen part of the reference starts, so its cuts land
where the reference's did, and check the cuts against its beats as the `reference-fragment-matching`
skill says (`references/seams.md` there).
A music bed is laid as the `background-music` skill says.
The user's own music goes on an audio layer too, as scene-building-basics says.

## 8. The user reviews

REVIEW the whole scene, as picsart-video-rules says. With it, in one or two sentences: what matches, and
any gap the checks left, in plain words, never a score. Each change the user asks for goes back to
the fragment it lives in, and through its check again.

## 9. Deliver

DELIVER as picsart-video-rules says.