Having way too much fun with AI video. I'm launching some ads this week and one thing I'm testing here is pain point amplification in a scenario is intentionally absurd, yet relatable. The clown one is very risky because it might insult some people. But gotta test it. The prompt I used to get videos like this: Clown prompt: Hyper-realistic, cinematic 4K video. Natural lighting. Shallow depth of field. Clean audio. Professional commercial tone with absurd humor. Scene Description: A clown wearing full clown makeup (red nose, subtle wig, painted smile) is dressed in a sharp mortgage broker suit (navy blazer, white shirt, tie). He’s sitting at a modern mortgage office desk with a laptop, phone, and paperwork. The office looks normal and professional — city skyline through the window — which contrasts with the fact that he’s clearly a clown. The clown looks exhausted, serious, and frustrated, not goofy. Camera starts as a medium close-up and slowly pushes in as he speaks. No on-screen text. No graphics. No captions. Just the character talking directly to camera. Performance Direction: The clown speaks calmly and honestly, like a real mortgage broker venting. Dry delivery. Slight frustration. Self-aware humor. Dialogue (≈12 seconds, spoken by the clown): Critical Instruction (Important): The clown speaks directly to the camera on screen. His mouth visibly moves and is lip-synced to the dialogue. No voiceover. No narration. No off-screen audio. The audio comes only from the character speaking in the scene. When I buy mortgage leads from the big vendors… I feel like a clown. They’re shared. They’re dead. Everyone’s already called them. I got tired of feeling that way. That’s why I use TapMyMortgage — exclusive, equity-enriched mortgage leads that actually make sense.” Ending Shot: The clown pauses, exhales slightly, and looks straight into camera. Natural room tone. Hard cut to black. Overall Mood: Absurd but honest. Funny because it’s true. Clearly aimed at mortgage professionals.

I cooked up something new over the holiday break for LeadCapture users who are running video ads. I’ve been going down the rabbit hole on AI-generated UGC-style video ads (the kind you’d run on Meta/TikTok for lead gen), and I kept running into the same problem: most tools can crank out videos fast… but they still feel like AI (weird motion, off voices, “too perfect” backgrounds). And the more I test these, the more I realize the ads that win are the ones that feel human. Long story short, I came up with a pretty good process + prompt for creating videos with Sora 2, but there were issues using Sora 2. So I got access to the Sora 2 API and then created my own system for this. I realized it could others so I decided to turn it into a tool, which I'm calling LeadReels.ai with the goal to create UGC-style lead gen videos that don’t look or sound like AI, without paying $10/video using Arcads and without dealing with watermarks that Sora adds. Basically giving LeadCapture users rock bottom pricing with no crazy subscriptions for fees Why this matters (and what you get as a LeadCapture user): - Cheaper creative testing: you get pricing at $2 per video (vs $5 for non-LeadCapture users, and way cheaper than most tools). it's costing us anywhere from $1.30 - $1.70 to do this so the mark up is very low. - No watermark downloads: generate → download → run it as an ad (no workarounds) - Made for lead gen: prompts/templates are designed around lead gen offers (final expense, solar, mortgage, MVA, etc.), not generic “AI video” - Workflow speed: save prompts, tag videos, build a library, clip/trims inside the UI - Community feed + remix: share a video you like (optional), and others can remix it as a starting point for their own offer/angle One constraint (for now): videos are currently capped at 12 seconds , but honestly that’s been kind of helpful for hooks + fast testing. It's invite only, dropping the sign up link here: here's the signup link - https://leadreels.ai/signup/plus/

Last night I created a UGC style video ad in about 10-15 minutes to start creating ads that I plan to run for both the TapMyMortgage brand to attract buyer leads and also for LeadCapture and I wanted to share the workflow that I went through to do this, I'm seeing all sorts of cool, crazy ways to use UGC video ads, thought it was interesting: https://www.loom.com/share/ed031d1cc6044c56b60f26f491225e06 The thing that I'm most excited about with this is how I can iterate really quick through tons of concepts, hooks, etc

While building the lead gen brand that I've been documenting, I went deep down the AI video rabbit hole. Main reason: that’s where I’m seeing the best engagement and I don’t have the time (or desire) to be on camera shooting videos myself. I was honestly skeptical of AI video at first .But after playing with Sora 2, my mind is kind of blown, especially for UGC-style ads. As a quick test, I spun up a video in minutes. It’s not perfect (I didn’t overthink it), but the quality is already good enough to test ads with. I’ve tried a lot of AI video tools, and so far Sora 2 is in a different league from what I can tell. That said, there are two real downsides: 1. You’re capped at 12 seconds (I’d be shocked if this doesn’t increase over time) 2. Every video has a moving watermark you can’t edit out cleanly (if using Sora directly) You can use watermark-removal tools, but they come with tradeoffs. The only other tool I’ve found that gets close to this quality is Arcads, but it’s roughly $10 per 12-second video, which adds up fast. So I took a different route. I’m bypassing Arcads and using the Sora 2 API directly, which lets me generate similar videos for about $1–$2 per video. Huge difference. If there’s interest, I’m happy to spin this into a public-facing app that makes this accessible without needing to mess with the API yourself.

So this morning I officially launched our LeadCapture Blueprint newsletter and I built this entire page with AI https://blueprint.leadcapture.io/ For the copy, I got some help from ChatGPT and Ojoy.ai (Frank Kern's latest product) The Lead Form is obviously setup with LeadCapture. I'll be using our email verification feature as soon as it launched next week. I'll plan to add a section in the course area around how I use AI to build landing pages soon!