Recast a winning ad

You have a video ad that’s already performing, and you want the same ad with a different person in it — for a new market, a new brand face, or to multiply a proven creative across presenters. The method has two nodes and one rule: Video Analyzer writes the lock list, Ad Recast renders it, and you read the list before you pay.

The recipe

1. Pick the source ad — 4–30 seconds. Longer than that? Run the analyzer anyway: it lists the cut-aligned segments that fit and an ffmpeg line to trim the first one. Prefer ads where the presenter’s face is in frame whenever their body is (see the tip below on hands).
2. Get the talent photo — one clear photo of the new person. The checklist that decides most of the result:
   • front or three-quarter angle, face unobstructed, neutral expression;
   • realistic skin texture, not retouched or poreless;
   • lighting direction matching the source’s;
   • no text or logos on clothing;
   • a skin tone similar to the source creator’s when the ad has hand shots without a face.
3. Wire the ad and the photo into Video Analyzer — the ad to video (via a Video input node), the photo to talent_image. Leave purpose on the recast lock list. Hit Analyze video; it costs a few cents and takes about a minute.
4. Read the lock list. The panel names the cuts, every shot with its camera and face flag, the beats, the captions, and the audio. Look at three things in particular: the amber warning naming the shots that show hands without a face (those keep the original person), any Talent photo: line about your reference, and the note that output is 24 fps if your source isn’t. Want the new person to keep the source wardrobe? Set wardrobe to keep. Want something else changed too, the hair, say? Add a line under Changes. Both re-run the analysis.
5. Wire the analyzer into Ad Recast’s prompt input, and the same ad and photo into its video and talent_image. The prompt box mirrors the analyzer’s lock-list prompt and the panel appears above it. Adjust anything in the box if you must; your edits win over the wire, and Reset brings the wire back.
6. Draft at 480p. The Recast button shows the price for your clip’s real length. Click it; that click is your approval. Renders take a few minutes. Check identity, framing, captions, and the report under the video: HELD, CHANGED, KNOWN, and COST.
7. Finalise at 720p or 1080p once the draft looks right. Switch resolution and click Recast again; the original audio is muxed back on automatically.

The shortcut. If you only need one recast and won’t reuse the analysis, skip the analyzer node: wire the ad and photo into Ad Recast alone and hit Compose from ad. It runs the same analysis and writes the prompt into the box, with the same panel above it.

Generating the whole graph. Generate canvas stops at Ad Recast when a lock list is wired in, with “waiting for approval”, so a full-graph run can never skip step 4. Tick Let Generate canvas render without stopping here on the Ad Recast card once you have read the list.

Tips

• Hands are the honest limit. Shots with no face in frame keep the source person’s hands, build, skin tone, nails, and jewellery — the model has nothing to anchor the new identity to. Cast for similar skin tone, pick a different source, or accept it when the hand shots are brief. The analyzer tells you the share of runtime affected.
• Develop at 480p, finalise at 720p. Every render is billed by the source clip’s length, and a 480p draft costs less than half a 720p one. Identity and caption problems show at 480p just as well.
• The talent photo’s quality is the ceiling — a sharp, naturally lit headshot beats a retouched studio portrait.
• Removing or changing hair (bangs off, different length) works — put it on the analyzer’s Changes field so it becomes a numbered change op, or say it in the prompt’s “Change only” line.
• For a quick swap on a short clip without captions, the simpler Character swap recipe may be all you need.