Create Engaging Faceless Videos with Pictory AI

Video content is a great way to share your ideas and get noticed online.

However, not everyone is comfortable being on camera or wants to spend a lot of time learning how to record and edit videos.

You might not have the technical skills, prefer not to be filmed, or just find the video creation process too complicated.

If you have your ideas written down — whether you wrote them yourself or got help from AI — there’s an easier way to change that script into short videos.

In this guide, you’ll see a simple process for turning a written script into a finished faceless video using Pictory AI.

By the end, you’ll know how to turn text into a video you can publish without needing to record yourself or use complicated editing tools.

Prerequisites

• A Pictory AI account (the free trial is perfect for diving into this guide and discovering its incredible features!)
• A written script for your short video (recommended).
  If you don’t have one yet, you can generate it inside Pictory or using an AI tool before starting.
• Google Chrome browser
  Pictory recommends using Chrome as your browser for the best performance.

Guide info

• Level: Navigator
• Tools: Pictory AI

Before you start…

Before starting this guide, there are a few things you should know:

▶️Why did we decide on Pictory AI for this specific use case?

We explored various AI video tools for creating short videos from scripts.

We chose Pictory AI because it is user-friendly, quick to set up, and automates many tasks (like scene creation, stock images, captions, and voice-overs) in one platform. It’s ideal for consistent publishing without needing to master a full video editing program. Plus, it comes with a 14-day Free Trial for you to try it out.

▶️Who is Pictory AI good for?

• Good for:
  • Beginners who want to create short-form social videos quickly
  • Coaches, creators, and small business owners who already have ideas/scripts
  • People who want an all-in-one workflow (script → visuals → captions → voice → export)
    
• Less ideal for:
  • Advanced editors who want frame-level control and cinematic editing
  • Brand-heavy productions requiring precise motion graphics
  • Users who want full creative control over every cut from the start

▶️How this workflow works?

In this workflow, you provide a written script (either written by you or generated with an AI chat tool such as ChatGPT).

Pictory AI automatically:

• Splits your script into scenes (small video segments)
• Selects stock footage to match each scene
• Adds on-screen text/captions
• Suggests styling and background music
• Lets you generate/apply voice-over

Your role (the human touch) includes:

• Review the AI’s choices
• Swap visuals that don’t match your message/tone
• Adjust scene order or timing if needed
• Choose the right voice and style
• Final-check before exporting

If this sounds like the tool and workflow you were looking for, then let us dive right in!

Instructions

The focus of this guide is on creating a video from a written script.
However, Pictory offers more than just that. We will quickly touch upon the other features in the “What else can it be used for?” part of this guide.

How to get started with Pictory AI?

Go to the Pictory website. Click either of the “Get started FREE” buttons or the Login button.

You can either create a Pictory account or continue with your Google account.

The first time you log in to Pictory, your 14-day Free Trial will be activated. No credit card details required!

Once logged in, you will see the Home page (your dashboard).

With the Free Trial you can generate 3 videos of up to 5 minutes at 720p quality and you get 5 minutes of hyper-realistic AI voices from ElevenLabs. The videos will have the Pictory watermark.

This allows you to try Pictory at zero cost, after which you can choose to upgrade to a paid plan. For more information, click here.

Creating your first video from a script:

To create our first video with Pictory, we’ll be using the “Text to video” option.

STEP 1:

From the Home page (see menu to the left), click the Text to video button.

STEP 2:

Write the script

We now have two options: we can use Pictory’s AI to write our script for us (Option A), or we can write or paste our own script (Option B). Below we will go through both options, after which we continue with Step 3.

OPTION A – Using Pictory’s AI:

STEP A1:

After choosing Text to video, click the “Start with an idea” button as marked in the image below.

STEP A2:

A pop-up window will appear, where you can write a simple prompt on what kind of video you want to create.

Before you click Generate the script, make sure to check the available options:

• Select the right video type. Note the small arrow button you can use to scroll to the right.
• Below your prompt, select the Platform you plan to publish your video on (note: you can scroll down to see more options) and the Length of the video you want to create.

STEP A3:

Once you’re ready, click the Generate script button.

OPTION B – Using your own script:

If you already have a script for your video, or you want to use some other AI tool to write it for you, you can simply paste the script in the large text area in the middle of the screen.

Pictory does most of the work for you based on the script. Even a simple script with only the text that should be in the video is enough to create a good video. If you want you can add more details to your script, for example explaining what kind of background footage should be shown while the voice-over speaks.

To write the prompt, you could ask any AI chat tool such as ChatGPT to do it for you. Simply use a prompt that looks something like this:

Prompt:
I want you to help me write the script for a short-form video.
– Subject / Title:
– Target audience:
– Platform the video will be posted on:
– Goal of the video:
– Tone of voice:
– Length of the video:

Write the script in plain text for the voice-over to read, without timestamps or headers for each section.
Make sure to start with a strong hook to attract the attention of the viewer.
End the script with a punchy one-line call to action (CTA) that fits the platform, for example “If you want more like this, make sure to subscribe!” for YouTube.

Simply fill in the blanks and run the prompt, resulting in a fast and easy video script that you can copy-paste into Pictory.

STEP 3:

Generating the video

With the script in place, Pictory will estimate the length of the video you’re about to generate (top right).

You can manually adjust the script, for example to change the wording or add / delete scenes to make your video longer or shorter. Alternatively, you can use Pictory’s AI at the bottom of the screen.

For example, we can shorten the script simply by clicking the Shorten button. The AI will now write a new script, as seen below. If you want to use this shortened script, click Replace script.

You’ll see that the Estimated duration at the top right has changed.

Before clicking the Generate video button, make sure to double-check the options at the bottom right. In most cases, the default settings as shown below are fine.

One quick tip that can really help Pictory to select the right type of footage for your video is hidden behind this small button in the Scene settings:

This allows you to specify what Categories and Styles it should select from, instead of the whole stock library.

Once you press the Generate video button, a new pop-up window asks you to choose the Theme for the video. Simply hover over the different themes to see a short example video.

📖 NOTE: As soon as you click on a theme, it will start generating.

STEP 4 – The Video Editor

After a short time, the Video Editor page will appear. Pictory has generated your video, using stock video footage matched to each part of your script, and added text overlay and background music.

The script has been divided into Scenes (short video segments) as seen on the left side. You can click on each scene to jump to that part of the video in the editor.

Click the Play button next to the timeline to preview the video.

Notice that the actual video length (top right) might differ from the estimated length we saw before. You can still delete scenes, duplicate scenes or change the order of the scenes as you wish.

As you can see there is a bunch of options in the left-side menu to edit your video preview before finalizing it. Let’s take a closer look at all of them.

📖 NOTE: The video preview and timeline will stay visible on the right. The menu to the left only changes the left side of the page.  

• STORY:

This is where you can find the Scenes of your video.

Hover over any scene and the small dots to the left appear. You can drag any scene up or down with this to change the order.

The buttons to the right are used to Duplicate or Delete a scene.

• VISUALS:

Here you can change the scenes that Pictory chose for your video. Simply select any of the scenes in the timeline on the right to start editing it.

At the top, choose Library to browse the stock videos available for use. Videos that show the small crown symbol (as marked with the red circle in the image above) are normally only available for the Professional tier paid plan but can be used during your Trial Period.

You can use the Search bar to find specific videos that you think match each scene best.

💡TIP #1: You can choose your preferred format for stock videos (Landscape or Portrait). You can still use Landscape oriented videos for a video that is in Portrait format, for example, but this will automatically cut the sides of the video to fit the video.

💡TIP #2: You can manually Trim the video by clicking this small button below the preview, if you only want to use a specific part of the stock video.

Instead of using stock video footage, you can choose AI Studio if you want to generate images or videos with AI instead of using stock video footage. This will cost you credits.

Make sure to select Video in the area marked with the red square in the image above.

Write a short prompt for the video you want to create. Choose the Model, Style and Aspect Ratio below the prompt box. Note how each model costs a different number of credits to generate.

📑 NOTE: For example, using the Veo 3.1 Fast model costs 10 credits per second of video generated, so a 4 second clip would cost you 40 credits. This means that a paid subscription is required, since the Free Trial does not give you that many credits. The total cost for the generated clip will be shown at the bottom.

You can even use your own video footage by clicking the Uploads button at the top.

• AVATARS:

If you want an AI avatar to show in your video doing the voice over, select Avatars in the left side menu. Select one of the available avatars and choose the voice you like. This option costs credits and is therefore not possible to use with the Free Trial.

• AUDIO:

Here you can create a Voice Over for your video, which uses ElevenLabs in the background.

There are a ton of Premium voices to choose from. Using Premium voices costs credits, and your remaining Quota is shown to the right. The Free Trial gives you 5 minutes of Voice generation.

However, if you scroll further down, or simply click on Premium to compress the drop-down menu, you will find the Standard voices. These do not cost you credits.

You can click the Play button beside each voice for a short demo of what the voice sounds like.

Once you find the voice you want to use, hover over it and click the Apply button that appears.

📖 NOTE: Once you click Apply, Pictory will start generating the voice over. This will replace the background music. The voice over will match the text overlay on each scene of the video. Pictory will adjust the length of each scene to match the voice over, meaning the total length of the video may change because of this.

• LAYOUTS:

Here you can change the Layout of each scene. For example, do you want the text to show on top of your video, or in a separate section below the video? You can use different layouts for each scene if you want to do so.

• TEXT:

Here you can manually add more text to each scene of your video. This text will be a static overlay in your video.

• ELEMENTS:

Here you can add shapes, stickers and GIFs to your video.

• STYLES:

Styles allows you to change the color palette of each scene, basically changing the color of the text or its background.

• BRANDING:

This section allows you to create a Branding Kit to use in your videos. This is especially useful for those who have their own business and want to use their brand logo, brand colors or brand font in each video.

You will first have to create a Brand, but don’t worry, this is very easy.

Simply give it a name, upload your brand logo, choose your brand colors and brand font and click Create. From now on, you can select this Brand for generating videos.

STEP 5 – Download the video

Once done editing your video, you can Download it. The button is at the top right corner of your screen.

You can now download the video for free, but it will have the Pictory watermark on it. If you want a video without a watermark, you will need a paid subscription.

Give it some time to prepare your final video. You can choose Run in background and Pictory will notify you via e-mail once the video is ready.

💡TIP #3: Apart from the complete video, if you go to Projects in the left-side menu and select any of your projects, you can also download just the audio (.mp3) or text (.srt, .vtt or .txt file) from there.

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Example

Now that you’ve seen how to create your own short-form video using a script, let’s look at an example.

We will be using a script written for a midlife coach that wants to create content for her social media audience. You can find the script we used in the PDF below:

The prompt – Midlife coach.pdf33.09 KB

In short, this is how we turned the script into a video:

• We pasted the prompt into the Text to video tool. We chose the 9:16 aspect ratio and under Scene settings we narrowed down the visuals to Lifestyle, Medical, People, Sports and Sports and Recreation and only Realistic styles.
• Pictory created Scenes. See the image below:

• We added a voice-over (Audio —> standard voice (Olivia, female)).
• We manually replaced the video footage for some of the scenes, mainly because of the formatting not fitting our video.

• We added a scene at the end for a quick thank you and subscribe scene (our call to action).
• Once everything was in place, we prepared the video for download.
  

What else can it be used for?

Pictory can do more than just creating a video from a script (Text to video). For example, you can let Pictory create a video from a URL, an audio file or even a slideshow presentation.

• URL to video:

This allows you to provide Pictory with the URL to the webpage you want to extract the information from, and have it turned into a video. Paste the URL at the top, then click the Scan URL button to check that Pictory can access the page. Choose the type of video you want to create, add a prompt, choose the platform and length and press Generate script. From here it works exactly like creating a video from a script.

📑 NOTE: Pictory offers a Chrome Extension. This allows you to quickly transform any website into a video. The extension is required when using pages that are locked behind a paywall or login system. You will still need to have access to the page yourself, but the extension allows Pictory to see what you can see after logging in.

• AI video editor:
  • You can upload any video and use Pictory to edit it. You can do simple edits, like making changes to the captions, remove pauses or filler words, or extract highlights from a longer video. Or you can take the video into the editor just like we’ve seen before in this guide, where you can edit each scene as you like.
• Summarize video:
  • This is part of the AI video editor, allowing you to quickly extract highlights from a longer video to create shorter clips to post on social media for example.
• Audio to video:
  • Here you can upload an audio file and turn it into a video. It will create a transcription of the audio file, which will then be used to turn into a video. From here it follows the same process as the Text to video option.
• Images to video:
  • This allows you to upload multiple images, photos or videos to turn into a video, which you can then edit further using Pictory’s editing tools.
• PPT to video:
  • You can turn your PowerPoint files into a video, where a voice-over will be giving your presentation. You can either let Pictory use its AI to generate the script based on the contents of your slideshow presentation or provide it with your own speaker notes to be used.
• Record:
  • Create a live recording (webcam only, screen only, or both) and edit it using Pictory’s editing tools.

Next steps

Now that you’ve discovered the capabilities of Pictory, will you take the plunge and try it out for yourself? With their 14-day Free Trial, there’s absolutely no reason to hesitate. This tool not only streamlines the process but also makes it significantly easier to create engaging short-form videos from a diverse range of sources.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on Pictory AI and how it’s made a difference in your video creation journey.

Remember, if you have any questions about this guide or the tool itself, don’t hesitate to reach out or leave a note in the comments.

Thank you!!!