The problem
Short-form ads live or die in the first three seconds, and every revision round on a timeline-only edit costs another hour of manual rework.
What was built
UGC ads for a Dubai dental clinic, an agency ad for Traced Growth, a real-estate recruitment ad with a scannable QR end card, AI UGC product ads, brand films, and faceless Shorts channels on Dubai culture and Tokyo life. Since October 2026, short-form founder reels for Market Your Architecture. All of it is collected on a dedicated 3D timeline portfolio site.
The engineering decision
Most edits are built from code rather than dragged on a timeline: each project has a build script that cuts on transcript word timings, renders word-by-word captions, punch-ins and motion graphics, tracks text onto walls or roofs behind the speaker, synthesises the music bed and masters the audio to -14 LUFS. A client revision becomes a parameter change and a re-render instead of a redo.
How I built it
- Languages
- PythonTypeScript (portfolio site)
- Frameworks & libraries
- FFmpeg (cutting, encoding, loudness)OpenCV (planar tracking)NumPy and Pillow (frame compositing, captions)faster-whisper (word-timed transcripts)ONNX Runtime with a u2net model (cutting the speaker out so text sits behind them)Next.js, React Three Fiber, GSAP and Lenis (the 3D portfolio site)
- Apps & tools
- Premiere ProAfter EffectsCapCutDaVinci ResolveGoogle Flow (Veo)HiggsfieldClaude Code (AI pair-programming)
- Hosting & data
- Vercel (portfolio site)Google Drive (client delivery)
- 01
Transcribe
Every take is transcribed with word-level timings, so cuts and captions land on the exact spoken word.
- 02
Cut from a script
A build script per project holds the cut list, the punch-ins, the caption phrases and the graphics, and renders the whole ad from source footage.
- 03
Motion graphics
Captions, stat counters and callouts drawn frame by frame; text tracked onto walls or roofs with OpenCV, and placed behind the speaker using a person cut-out.
- 04
Sound
Music bed synthesised in code, sound effects placed on cue, voice cleaned and the mix mastered to -14 LUFS for social platforms.
- 05
Revise and deliver
A revision is a parameter change and a re-render. Finals go out as Drive links and onto the 3D portfolio site.
Next plate
Zipicka Social Video LibraryFour-channel organic content operation supporting the store: content calendars, short-form video, product and affiliate creative, copywriting and community management.