Can Claude make videos? Yes, if the video is code

Yes, Claude can make a video, but it does not paint the frames. Claude writes text and code, so it writes an HTML page that describes the film, and a renderer opens the page in headless Chrome and records every frame into an MP4. The film is code that a person can read, change and render again.

What “make a video” means here

There are two ways an AI can make a video. A video model generates pixels from a prompt. You cannot edit one number in the result, and the same prompt gives a different clip each time. The other way is to write code, and the code draws the frames.

Claude does the second. Ask Claude for a chart and it writes the code that draws the bars. A film works the same way, with a clock added.

Both ways make real MP4 files. They suit different jobs. Code suits motion graphics: titles, product screens, charts, logos, captions, launch films and explainers. A video model suits footage of a person walking down a street. This post covers the first kind.

What you need

Claude in a chat window cannot render a film by itself, because it has no shell. You need an agent that can write files and run commands. Claude Code does both. You also need a renderer.

We use vawe, a framework that renders one HTML page into one film. You need Node 22 or later, git, ffmpeg and the Chrome that puppeteer downloads. Install it, and the first new checks the tools for you:

npm install
bin/vawe new my-first-film

Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md when it starts in the repository, and that file imports AGENTS.md, so it already knows the page contract. To use the skills outside the repository, run npx skills add vawe-hq/skills or read use vawe with an agent.

The page Claude writes

You ask in one sentence: “make a 4 second title card that says Hello, video”. Claude writes a page like this one. We rendered it, so the code below ran:

<!doctype html>
<html data-aspect="16:9">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="duration" content="4">
<meta name="message" content="Claude can write the video, a renderer films it">
<title>Hello</title>
<style>
  html, body { margin: 0; height: 100%; background: #0b0d12; overflow: clip; }
  .world { position: absolute; inset: 0; display: grid; place-content: center; gap: 2vh; justify-items: center; font-family: system-ui, sans-serif; color: #f4f6fb; }
  h1 { margin: 0; font-size: 12vh; letter-spacing: -0.03em; animation: rise 1s cubic-bezier(.2,.8,.2,1) both; }
  p { margin: 0; font-size: 4vh; color: #8fa3c8; animation: rise 1s 0.5s cubic-bezier(.2,.8,.2,1) both; }
  @keyframes rise { from { opacity: 0; transform: translateY(6vh); } to { opacity: 1; transform: none; } }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="world" data-world="hello">
  <h1>Hello, video</h1>
  <p>one HTML page, one film</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

There is no video format to learn. The motion is a CSS @keyframes rule, which Claude has written many times before. The vawe parts are a duration meta tag and one data-world element per beat. The renderer sets the animation clock for each frame, so the page needs no timer.

The commands

The loop has five commands. Claude runs them, and you can run them too:

bin/vawe new hello --request "4 second title card that says Hello, video"
bin/vawe dev films/hello/page.html --whole --small
bin/vawe frame films/hello/page.html --at 2
bin/vawe critique films/hello/page.html
bin/vawe ship films/hello/page.html

new asks for the facts the request leaves out, such as the subject and the ending, then writes page.html and brief.md. Add --defaults for an unattended run that guesses them. We cover those questions in make a video with Claude Code.

dev renders a draft at half size and 30 fps. On our test page above, a 4 second draft took 9.6 seconds, with 120 frames at 960 by 540 pixels. frame prints one still so Claude can look at the result. critique is for a fresh session that did not write the page, because the writer misses faults the reader sees. ship renders the 60 fps final.

Limits

• A person approves the final. ship refuses until a fresh review is done and the person types /vawe-approve. Claude cannot approve its own film.
• The first draft is plain. Our test page works but makes a weak film. Looking at frames, fixing and critiquing improves it.
• It does not cut camera footage. It makes motion graphics from web code.
• Sound is limited. A page can mix your audio files with <audio> tags. Claude does not record a voice for you.
• It runs on your machine. There is no cloud rendering, so a long film takes the time your laptop needs.
• It needs an agent with a shell. A chat window without one can write the page, and you then render it yourself.

Does the same page give the same video?

Yes. The renderer seeks the page to each frame time and does not play it, so a busy machine does not drop frames. A virtual clock replaces Date, timers and Math.random. Why the same page gives the same frames lists the six sources of drift we fixed. For the capture pipeline, see render HTML to MP4 with headless Chrome.

If you want to know why a page and not a JSON scene file, read JSON video format vs HTML: a blind test. The short format of the page is in the page contract.

FAQ

Can Claude make a video from a prompt? Yes, through code. Claude Code writes an HTML page from your prompt and a renderer turns the page into an MP4. Claude does not generate the pixels itself.

Can the Claude chat app make an MP4? Not on its own. It can write the page, but rendering needs a shell with Node, ffmpeg and puppeteer’s Chrome. Claude Code has the shell.

Can ChatGPT or another model do the same? Any agent that writes files and runs commands can follow the same loop. The page is plain HTML, so no model needs to learn a private format.

How long does a draft take? Our 4 second test page rendered in 9.6 seconds on a laptop. A film with video, blur and many layers takes longer.

Is it free? vawe is open source and runs on your machine. See the quickstart to install it.