How to Recreate a Viral Short with AI, Step by Step

A viral Short works because of its formula: how the first line hooks you, how fast it talks, where it cuts and what it looks like. You can't reuse someone else's video, but you can reuse its formula on a topic of your own. That's what APImage's Style Cloner is for, and this guide walks through it step by step, with every setting explained.

The short version

Analyzing a video costs 8 credits for the script and the look together, and writing a script costs 2. The shots are billed like any other video generation, by the model you pick. The Style Cloner is part of APImage's paid plans.

Step 1: Copy the link of the video you want to recreate

Any public video from the three big short-video apps works:

• Instagram: open the Reel, click the three dots and choose Copy link. Links to Reels and to posts both work.

• TikTok: tap Share, then Copy link. The short vm.tiktok.com links work too.

• YouTube: click Share, then Copy. Shorts, regular videos and youtu.be links all work.

Pick a video for its format, not only because you like it. If you want to make 3D explainers, copy a 3D explainer. In the video tutorial I used "How Stitches Work" by Zack D. Films, a channel known for faceless 3D explainers.

Step 2: Paste the link and choose what to copy

Open the Style Cloner in APImage and paste the link into the box at the top left. The Paste button reads it from your clipboard, and the platform's icon appears once the link is recognized.

Under the box you choose what to copy:

Choose Both unless you only need one half, then press Analyze. The cloner opens the video, takes screenshots, listens to the speech (for YouTube it reads the captions instead) and then reads the script and the look. You can watch each part land on the page. When a platform is slow to hand a video over this can take a few minutes, and you can leave the page in the meantime: the finished analysis shows up under Yours. If an analysis fails, the credits come back.

Step 3: Read the breakdown

The breakdown is the formula, laid out on one page. Here's what it looks like for "How Stitches Work".

At the top is the hook: the video's first line, what kind of hook it is, and why it works. Zack opens on a moment almost everyone has lived through, and the needle goes in on the very first frame.

Under the hook are five numbers measured from the speech. For "How Stitches Work" they come out like this:

Your new script gets written to these numbers, so a calm, conversational explainer comes back calm and conversational.

Below the numbers, the screenshots run as a filmstrip with the video's beats laid over them. That's the storyline: where the hook ends, where each new stage starts and how long each part lasts. Hover over a beat to see what it does.

The two columns underneath split the formula in half. The Script column covers the tone, the person and tense it's told in, the energy and how it ends. It also has three folds: a writing playbook of rules, a fill-in template and the full transcript.

The Look column starts with the palette, and clicking any color copies its hex code. Then come the format and aspect ratio, and the traits that make the look: camera movement, shot types, editing rhythm and lighting. Under Prompt & details sits the style prompt, the text a video model gets so that every shot comes out in this look.

Step 4: Write your own script in the same style

When the analysis is done, the left panel switches to Make yours. Type your topic into the box, and keep it in the same family as the original. A 3D body formula suits anything that happens inside the body or to it. In the video I used "How to get water out of your ear".

Then set the length. Match keeps the original's length, and for Shorts you can also pick 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute or 1.5 minutes (long-form videos get 1, 3, 5 or 10 minutes). Under More you can pick the language, from English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, or leave it on Auto. Leave the shot list switched on: it gives every line of the script a video prompt in the cloned look.

Press Write script. It costs 2 credits, and the script appears under Your scripts with its length, word count and number of shots.

The script is new. It follows the formula (the hook type, the beats, the pace and the playbook's rules), and the writer is told never to reuse a sentence or a distinctive phrase from the original.

Step 5: Turn each line into a shot

Every line in the shot list has a small film icon. Click it and the Video studio opens with that line's prompt already filled in and the cloned look attached as a Style card, palette and all.

Check the aspect ratio (9:16 for Shorts) and the length, pick a model and press Generate. You're only charged if it works; failed runs are refunded. Then go back to the script and do the same for the next line. If you're still deciding on a model, our guide to AI image and video platforms compares them.

Two more buttons on the script card are worth knowing. Voice-over sends the script to the voice generator, and Talking avatar turns it into a lip-synced presenter, which works well for the formats in our guide to UGC ads.

If you'll use this look again, press the bookmark in the breakdown to keep it in your Brand Kit. From then on you can pick it as a Style in the Video studio for any video.

Step 6: Put it together and export

Open the Video Editor from the sidebar. Choose Your library, then Videos, and add your shots one after another; each lands on the timeline behind the last one. Trim them and add your voice-over or music, then press Export.

You can export an MP4 in 720p, 1080p or 4K. The editor renders on your own device, so nothing is uploaded unless you save the result to your library.

What the Style Cloner copies, and what it leaves alone

It copies a format: the structure, the pacing, the writing rules and the look. It doesn't hand you the creator's footage or words, and it isn't meant to. Write your own topic and generate your own shots. If you show the original in your own video, as I did, credit the creator.

When it works less well

• Silent videos: with no speech there's no script to copy. You can still make a video in its look.

• Reels without captions: the speech has to be transcribed first, which takes longer. Transcription stops after five minutes of audio.

• Slow platforms: sometimes a platform takes a while to hand a video over. The analysis carries on without you and lands under Yours.

No viral video in mind? Start from a proven format

The Discover tab holds 13 formats from creators with very viral videos, including Zack D. Films' 3D body facts, sorted into faceless, talking head, story, explainer and comedy. Each one works straight away without analyzing anything, so you can go right to Make yours. The numbers on those formats are typical for the format; choose "Analyze this exact video" in the menu to measure the example itself.

The quickest way to see it work is with a video you already know. Open the Style Cloner, paste its link and press Analyze.