ReelPilot

An automated, AI-powered 9:16 short-form video generator with a sleek Web UI.
Generate TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels instantly using LLMs, Deepgram Aura voiceovers, and Pexels b-roll.

🚀 Features

• Sleek Web Dashboard: A dark-themed, responsive web interface for managing your creations, local music library, and video generation.
• AI Scripting: Powered by OpenAI/Gemini models to generate high-retention scripts with dynamic pacing and hooks.
• Cinematic Hooks: Automatically fetches and integrates high-retention visual hooks (via Malloy hooks).
• Pro Voiceovers: Uses Deepgram Aura TTS for incredibly realistic, human-like narration.
• Dynamic B-Roll & Fallbacks: Uses Pexels Videos API to fetch highly relevant 9:16 vertical b-roll. Falls back to static images with beautiful Ken Burns motion effects when videos aren't available.
• Hardware-Accelerated Rendering: Lightning-fast FFmpeg pipeline utilizing NVIDIA (NVENC) or Intel (QSV) hardware acceleration.
• Local Music Library: Upload your own BGM or let the AI automatically pick from the Pixabay Music API.
• Auto-Pilot Mode: Provide absolutely no input, and the AI will brainstorm a topic, pick a hook, and generate a video completely autonomously.
• Pop-On Captions: Automatically generated, word-level timed ASS subtitles using faster-whisper.

📦 Installation

# 1. Install ffmpeg (required for rendering)
scoop install ffmpeg   # or choco install ffmpeg

# 2. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/reelpilot-studio.git
cd reelpilot-studio

# 3. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies
uv venv
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"

# 4. Set up environment variables
copy .env.example .env

🔑 Environment Setup

Edit your .env file and add your API keys:

• OPENAI_API_KEY — Script + rerank endpoint
• GEMINI_API_KEY — (Optional) Gemini API endpoint for native script writing
• DEEPGRAM_API_KEY — Aura TTS for voiceovers
• PEXELS_API_KEY — B-roll videos and images
• PIXABAY_API_KEY — Background music (Optional, you can upload your own to the Web UI)

🖥️ Usage

Web UI (Recommended)

Start the interactive web dashboard:

python -m reelpilot --web

Navigate to http://localhost:8000 to access the sleek ReelPilot UI!

Warning

Security Note: The Web UI includes a built-in Settings panel that allows you to view and edit your API keys. It is designed for local use only. If you plan to host this Web UI on a public-facing server, you must implement authentication (e.g., HTTP Basic Auth or a login system) or your API keys will be exposed to the internet.

Command Line Interface

You can also use the powerful CLI for automation or batch generation:

# Auto-Pilot Mode (Random topic & hook)
python -m reelpilot

# Batch Auto-Pilot Mode (Generate 5 random videos)
python -m reelpilot --count 5

# Specific Topic
python -m reelpilot "POV: you finally understood async Python" --hook auto --voice aura-orion-en

# Force specific background music
python -m reelpilot "The best productivity hack" --bgm lofi-chill.mp3

📂 Project Structure

• src/reelpilot/web.py — FastAPI web server and UI routes
• src/reelpilot/cli.py — Typer CLI entrypoint and pipeline orchestrator
• src/reelpilot/assembly.py — Hardware-accelerated FFmpeg pipeline
• src/reelpilot/broll.py — Pexels video & image fallback engine
• src/reelpilot/effects.py — Ken Burns effects, color grading, scaling
• src/reelpilot/script.py — LLM prompting and beat structuring

📄 License

MIT License.

Note: Malloy hooks downloaded into assets/hooks are free to use commercially per their respective licensing. An attribution sidecar (<slug>.txt) is automatically written next to every output MP4 with full Pexels/Pixabay credits.