Six things I wish I'd known when I started making AI video digital twins

I've been getting a lot of questions lately about the process behind creating a digital twin. Not the sales pitch version, the actual process. So here's what I'd tell myself if I could go back to the start.

There's a full 2-minute video version of this on the Examples page if you'd rather watch it than read it. Either way, these are the six things that made the biggest difference.

1. Leave a gap between phrases

When you're recording your twin's source footage, close your mouth and pause fully between sentences, roughly every 20 to 30 seconds. It feels unnatural while you're filming. It's what gives an editor clean boundaries to cut on later. Skip it and you end up with lip sync that never quite settles, because there's nowhere clean to make a cut.

2. Face your light source

This is the one that separates a twin that looks like you on a good day from one that looks obviously synthetic. Even, bright light on your face beats a dramatic setup every time. No harsh shadows, no highlights blowing out one side of your face. If the light on your face is uneven, everything downstream has to work harder to compensate, and it still won't fully hide it.

3. Talk like you're talking to a friend

Performing for a camera reads as stiff. Talking like you're talking to a friend, not presenting to a room, is what sounds natural once it's rebuilt by the twin. Chin slightly down, don't rush. Slow and clear beats fast and polished, every time.

4. How you say it matters more than what you say

Talk about something you know well. For me, that's photography. The specific topic matters less than whether you sound like yourself while you say it, because that's the part your twin has to reproduce.

5. Write scripts the way you speak

A script written to be read out loud sounds different to one written to be read on a page. Write how you speak, not how you'd write an email. Formal grammar and rigid structure make a twin sound like it's reciting something. A conversational script, the kind that mirrors how you'd explain something to a friend, is what lets it sound like you.

6. Test a few paragraphs before committing to a full script

Before you commit to a full script, test a few paragraphs first. Ask the only question that matters: does your twin sound like you? It's a small check, and it's easy to skip when you're excited to get moving. It's also the one that saves you from rebuilding an entire video because something about the pacing or phrasing was just slightly off.

Just easy to miss, not hard to fix

None of these six things are difficult once you know them. They're just easy to miss the first time, because nobody tells you until after you've already made the mistake. That's the gap between a twin that's real versus slightly off, and it's almost always in the details above, not in anything more complicated than that.