Claude writes scripts, storyboards and animation code, but it has no video model, so it can't film a scene or make realistic footage. To get generated shots, you connect a video model such as ByteDance's Seedance, Kuaishou's Kling or Google's Veo. This guide covers what Claude can do by itself, the connectors that bring these models into the Claude app, how to call them from Claude Code with your own keys, what a clip costs, and a route that needs no setup.
The short answer: for a finished video with generated shots and no API keys, use VideoStudio in Orkas. It generates shots with Seedance 2.0, a built-in model, shows you the price before it spends credits, and edits everything into an MP4. New accounts get 500 free credits. To generate inside the Claude app, add Higgsfield's or Runway's connector; both bill your credits on that service and offer Seedance 2.5, Kling and Veo 3.1. Veo no longer works with a Google AI Studio key: Google shut down the Veo 3.1 previews in the Gemini API on October 22, 2026.
Can Claude generate videos?
Not footage. Claude Motion, which Anthropic launched in beta on October 8, 2026, turns text, charts, shapes and images into short animations that you can export as MP4. Anthropic says it doesn't use a video generation model, so it doesn't create realistic footage or people. It is in beta on Team and Enterprise plans only.
Claude Code has no video generation either. It can write animation code with HyperFrames or Remotion and render it to MP4, which works for explainers, product walkthroughs and animated text. It can't open a video file directly: to check a clip, it needs frames saved as images first. OpenAI's Codex has no video generation of its own, and OpenAI shut down the Sora 2 API on September 24, 2026.
For realistic shots you need a video model, and people connect one in three ways:
- A hosted connector in the Claude app, from Higgsfield, Runway or Kling. You sign in with that service's account and pay with its credits.
- An MCP server or skill in Claude Code that calls a model's API with your own key.
- An app that runs the whole production, such as VideoStudio in Orkas, which plans the shots, generates them and edits the video.
No setup: VideoStudio in Orkas
We recommend starting with VideoStudio, the video agent built into Orkas. Describe the video you want and attach what you have: a product page link, photos, a logo, a script or raw footage. VideoStudio plans the video, generates the shots it needs with the built-in Seedance 2.0 model and looks at the frames that come back. Then it builds the finished video around them, with captions, voiceover, music, on-screen text and your real product screens, and saves an MP4 in the ratio you asked for. You don't need an API key or ffmpeg.
- What a generated shot can be: text-to-video, or image-to-video from your product photo or a key image, so the same product or character stays consistent across shots. Each shot is 4 to 15 seconds long, up to 1080p, in 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 and other ratios.
- What it costs: generated footage is billed per second. At 720p, Seedance 2.0 costs 50 to 100 credits per second depending on the tier VideoStudio picks, so a 5-second shot costs 250 to 500 credits. 1080p costs about 2.5 times as much. New accounts get 500 free credits, enough for one or two short shots.
- You approve the price first: before the first paid shot, Orkas shows a card with the shots it plans and their price, and nothing is generated until you answer. Each shot gets at most two retries.
- Not every video needs generated footage: captions, animated text, price cards, split screens and edits of your own footage are rendered on your computer and only use credits for the chat model.
VideoStudio uses the chat model you set in Orkas, which is the built-in model unless you change it. To have Claude do the planning and writing, add your own Anthropic API key in Settings.
A request to try
Attach your product photos, replace the brackets and send this to VideoStudio:
Make a 15-second 9:16 ad for [our ceramic desk lamp]. Product page: [https://example.com/lamp].
Generate two shots with my photos as the reference: [the lamp switching on in a dark room] and [a slow push-in on the glaze].
Keep the product exactly as it looks in the photos.
Put this text on screen exactly: "[Warm light for late work — $89]".
Add music and no voiceover.
Show me the price of the generated shots before you spend credits.You get the MP4, each generated shot as a separate file and the credits spent. To change a word, the music or the order of the shots, just ask: VideoStudio renders the video again without paying for the shots again.
Seedance, Kling and Veo compared
These are the newest versions of the three models, with the official API prices per second of 720p video as of November 8, 2026:
| Model | Newest version | Clip length / Resolution | Official price at 720p | Where you get a key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seedance (ByteDance) | Seedance 2.5 | 4–30 seconds · Up to 1080p | $0.23/s (Seedance 2.0: $0.15/s) | BytePlus ModelArk; Volcengine Ark in China |
| Kling (Kuaishou) | Kling 4.0, API since October 28, 2026 | 3–30 seconds · 720p, 1080p | $0.16/s (Kling 4.0 Flash: $0.09/s) | Kling developer site: kling.ai, or klingai.com in China |
| Veo (Google) | Veo 3.1 | 4, 6 or 8 seconds · Up to 4K | $0.40/s with audio (Fast: $0.10/s, Lite: $0.05/s) | Google Cloud, not Google AI Studio |
The prices come from the BytePlus, Kling and Google Cloud price lists. All three generate sound with the picture and accept a reference image. Check these before you pay:
- Seedance: BytePlus lets you turn on Seedance 2.x only after your account holds $30 in credits, or you buy a $30 savings plan or resource pack. Volcengine, ByteDance's platform in China, needs a +86 phone number and doesn't verify individuals from outside China. The model IDs differ:
dreamina-seedance-2-5-260628on BytePlus,doubao-seedance-2-5-260628on Volcengine. Seedance 2.5 doesn't accept reference images or videos of real people's faces, and only Seedance 2.0 goes up to 4K. - Kling: Kling 4.0 needs a Flagship resource pack. The cheapest is a trial pack: $9 for 64 units, about 64 seconds of 720p video, valid for 30 days. General packs don't work with Kling 4.0, and the global and China sites are separate accounts.
- Veo: Google shut down the Veo 3.1 previews in the Gemini API on October 22, 2026, according to its deprecation list. Veo 3.1 now runs only on Google Cloud, in the platform formerly called Vertex AI (now Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform). You need a Cloud project with billing, you sign in with gcloud instead of using an API key, and Google lists English as the prompt language. With an AI Studio key, Google points you to Gemini Omni Flash (
gemini-omni-1.2-flash) instead, about $0.07 per second at 720p. The Gemini API has no free tier for video.
Generate video in the Claude app with a connector
These three services run their own MCP servers, so you sign in with their account and don't need an API key. None of them is in Anthropic's connector directory, so you add them as custom connectors: in Claude, open Customize ▸ Connectors, choose Add custom connector, paste the URL and sign in. On the Free plan you can add one custom connector; on Team plans, only owners can add them.
| Connector | URL | Video models | How you pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Higgsfield | https://mcp.higgsfield.ai/mcp | Seedance 2.5 and 2.0, Kling 3.0 and 4.0, Veo 3.1, Gemini Omni Flash, MiniMax H3 and more | Higgsfield credits. Higgsfield's pricing guide puts Seedance 2.5 and Veo on Plus ($49 a month, 1,000 credits) or higher; a 5-second 720p Seedance 2.5 clip is 35 credits |
| Runway | https://mcp.runwayml.com/mcp | Gen-4.5, Seedance 2.5, Kling 3.0, Veo 3.1 | Your Runway credits; the models depend on your Runway plan |
| Kling | https://kling.ai/mcp | Kling's own models, including Kling 4.0 | Paid Kling credits; bonus credits and off-peak free generation don't apply |
The same URLs work in Claude Code: run claude mcp add --transport http higgsfield https://mcp.higgsfield.ai/mcp, change the name and URL for the others, then type /mcp in a session to sign in. Higgsfield's own instructions for Claude Code use its command-line tool and skills instead: npm i -g @higgsfield/cli, higgsfield auth login and npx skills add higgsfield-ai/skills.
ByteDance has no Claude connector for Seedance. The top result for a "Seedance connector" is seedance.tv, an independent site that resells Seedance credits and says it isn't affiliated with ByteDance.
Call the models from Claude Code with your own keys
With an MCP server or a skill, Claude Code sends your prompt straight to the model's API, and the provider bills your key. We read the source of the tools people use most. Several of them call a model you can't use anymore, so check the model before you install:
| Tool | Model it uses by default | Key | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
Google's Veo MCP server (mcp-veo-go, official) | veo-3.1-fast-generate-001 | Google Cloud project and gcloud sign-in | Current model. Google's own Claude Code command for it fails; see the steps below |
| fal MCP (official, hosted) | None; Claude picks the model | Sign in with your fal account | fal says its Veo 3.1 endpoints will be deprecated on November 17, 2026. Its Seedance 2.5 price is about twice BytePlus's |
| WaveSpeed MCP (official) | Seedance 2.5 | WAVESPEED_API_KEY | $0.36 per second at 720p |
mcp-kling by 199-mcp, the most-starred Kling MCP | kling-v2-master | KLING_ACCESS_KEY and KLING_SECRET_KEY | Only allows models up to Kling 2.0 Master and hasn't changed since June 2025. It can't reach Kling 4.0 |
seedance-skill by robonuggets | Seedance 2.0 on fal | FAL_KEY | A skill that calls fal with curl; copy SKILL.md into .claude/skills/seedance/ |
The most-starred "Seedance skills" on GitHub write prompts for you to paste into another app. They don't call the model. For Kling 4.0 from Claude Code, use Kling's own connector above.
How to set up Veo 3.1 in Claude Code
- Set up Google Cloud. You need a project with billing turned on. Sign in on your computer with
gcloud auth application-default login. - Install the server. Google's install script puts
mcp-veo-goin~/.local/bin:curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/genmedia-creative-studio/main/experiments/mcp-genmedia/mcp-genmedia-go/install-online.sh | bash - Add it to Claude Code:
claude mcp add --env GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=YOUR_PROJECT_ID --transport stdio veo -- mcp-veo-go. Google's guide puts the nameveoright after--env. Claude Code reads that as another variable and rejects the command, so keep--transport stdioin between. - Ask for a clip, for example: "Use Veo 3.1 to make an 8-second 16:9 shot of a ceramic lamp switching on in a dark room." The server uses Veo 3.1 Fast unless you name another model. Each clip takes a while, so if calls time out, raise the tool timeout as Google's guide does.
The server also accepts the veo-3.0 model IDs, which Google retired on June 30, 2026, so stick to the 3.1 models.
Use your own keys in Orkas
If you already pay a video provider, add the key in Orkas: Settings ▸ Models ▸ Video ▸ Add video service, pick the provider and model, and paste the key. The list includes Kling, Runway, MiniMax, Vidu and Seedance through Volcengine. VideoStudio then generates shots with your key, the provider bills you directly, and Orkas doesn't charge credits for those shots. Once you add a key, Orkas uses only your keys for video and doesn't quietly switch to the built-in model; if you add several, it tries them in the order of the list.
You can also run Claude Code from Orkas. In the sidebar, choose Connect agents and pick Claude Code. Orkas runs the copy installed on your computer with your sign-in and keeps your MCP servers, so the connectors and servers above still work there. The built-in video model is for VideoStudio, so ask VideoStudio for the video and Claude Code for the code around it.
Which route should you choose?
| Your goal | Start with | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| A finished ad or explainer with a few generated shots, without setup | VideoStudio in Orkas | An MP4 with captions, music and generated shots; built-in Seedance 2.0, 500 free credits to start |
| Many video models in the Claude app on one subscription | Higgsfield or Runway connector | Clips in the chat, paid with that service's credits |
| Kling 4.0 in Claude | Kling's connector | Kling clips, paid with Kling credits |
| Veo 3.1 from Claude Code | Google's Veo MCP server | Veo clips billed to your Google Cloud project |
| Seedance 2.5 on your own key | WaveSpeed MCP, or a BytePlus key in your own script | Seedance clips; the provider bills each second |
| Animated charts, text and explainers, no footage | Claude Motion on Team or Enterprise, or HyperFrames or Remotion in Claude Code | An MP4 built from code; no video model needed |
Questions
Can Claude generate videos?
Not realistic footage. Claude Motion, on Team and Enterprise plans, makes animations from code and exports them as MP4, and Claude Code can render animation code with HyperFrames or Remotion. For generated shots, connect a video model such as Seedance, Kling or Veo, or use VideoStudio in Orkas, which has a built-in model.
Can Claude generate videos for free?
Not generated footage. The video model APIs don't have a free tier: the Gemini API has none for video, BytePlus asks for $30 in credits before you can turn on Seedance, and Kling 4.0 starts with a $9 pack. The connectors charge credits on those services, and Higgsfield keeps Seedance 2.5 and Veo for paid plans. New Orkas accounts get 500 free credits, enough for about 5 to 10 seconds of 720p footage in VideoStudio, and captions, animated text and edits don't use generation credits.
Can Claude turn an image into a video?
Yes, with an image-to-video model. Seedance, Kling and Veo all accept a reference image, through a connector, an MCP server or VideoStudio, which uses your product photo as the reference so the product stays the same across shots. Seedance 2.5 doesn't accept photos of real people's faces.
Why did Veo stop working with my Gemini API key?
Google shut down the Veo 3.1 preview models in the Gemini API on October 22, 2026, and the Veo 3.0 models on June 30, 2026. Tools that call veo-3.1-generate-preview or a similar ID now fail. Use veo-3.1-generate-001 on Google Cloud, or switch to Gemini Omni Flash (gemini-omni-1.2-flash), which works with an AI Studio key.
Is there an official Seedance connector for Claude?
No. ByteDance offers Seedance through the BytePlus ModelArk and Volcengine Ark APIs, not through a Claude connector. Higgsfield, Runway and WaveSpeed offer Seedance 2.5 on their own credits or keys. seedance.tv, which shows up when you search for one, is an independent reseller.
To edit the finished video in CapCut, see How to Edit Videos with Claude (and CapCut). To keep generation costs down, read why AI video cost is mostly retries. For more ideas, see what you can make with VideoStudio. To try it with your own product, download Orkas and start with VideoStudio.