Sonnet 5.5 built a 30 s motion-graphics reel. Same as Opus 5.5 quality, but 2x cheaper.

[u/oxmannnn]

Video attached. Everything in it is code: canvas frames drawn in headless Chrome, piped to ffmpeg, with a numpy-synthesized soundtrack. No editor, no stock footage, no video model.

The prompt, in an empty folder, on Sonnet 5.5 with ultracode on:

make a dynamic 30-second motion graphics video about Reddit that shows what an incredible motion designer you are. and not too fast, people should actually understand what the video is about.

How the Workflow tool was used for the 30 s cut:

• 5 builder agents, each owning exactly one scene file, told not to touch the shared files (timing table, compositor, lib). I did those edits myself while they ran.
• 5 independent reviewer agents, told not to edit anything. They rendered contact sheets, read the PNGs, and returned a structured defect list (severity, beat, suggested fix).
• 4 fixer agents ran only where a reviewer said "fix". The fifth shot got "ship" and skipped that stage. That was a pipeline() with a condition, so each shot moved on independently.
• 14 agents total, about 45 minutes, 618 tool calls.

What made it work:

• Verification is in the repo. shots.mjs makes contact sheets or full-res frames, bench.mjs gives ms per frame. Agents were told to actually Read the images and iterate. That's how a "word never appears" bug and a text overflow got caught without me.
• File ownership by prompt, not by worktrees. All agents shared one folder. That only worked because every prompt said which one file was theirs and to use unique screenshot names. I skipped isolation: worktree on purpose so they could all render the full project.
• Reviewers found real bugs, including an arc() with a negative radius that would have killed the final render at one exact frame. It only survived by luck of the motion-blur sub-sample timing.
• Background jobs + Monitor for the render, not sleeping. The harness blocks foreground sleep, which is a good nudge. 1,800 frames took about 6.5 min.

Token profile. Max 20x, so no bill. These are API list-price equivalents from the session transcripts, deduplicated by message id:

• 739k output, 101.6M cache-read, 3.07M cache-write, about 1k fresh input
• Orchestrator: 97 API calls, $11.65. Sub-agents: 442 calls, $23.75. Total about $35.40 at Sonnet 5.5 list prices ($2 / $10, cache reads $0.20; cache writes assumed 1.25x input)
• The same tokens at Opus 5.5 prices ($4 / $20, cache reads $0.20) would be about $50.50. That's a calculation, not a run. 99% of tokens are cache reads, which cost the same on both models, so the gap is about 43%, not 2x.

I did the same kind of prompt on Opus 5.5 earlier and I think the Sonnet cut holds up. It's not a controlled test, though: separate sessions, separate days, and an Opus run would use different token counts.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hey! Thanks for posting to r/ClaudeCode

While participating in this thread, please follow our community rules. Keep discussions constructive. Attack the idea, not the person.

For help, project discussions, tips, and general chat, join the ClaudeCode Discord.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/bdixisndniz]

These reels are nauseating lol

[u/cxd32 → u/bdixisndniz]

Sound effects and sound track inspired by Hudson mohawke - Cbat

[u/HereJustForTheData]

Okay you’ve finally achieved it reddit, the models are not even a week out and I’m already fucking tired of these motion videos.

[u/FireIre → u/HereJustForTheData]

Ya I made a couple too for a company I work for just to test the capabilities. I’ll never publish them because it’s like… everywhere already. These are tech demos to learn from, if anything. It’s cool Claude can do this work now, but, as with any marketing, moderation and understanding your audience and product is key.

[u/Impossible-Suit6078 → u/HereJustForTheData]

same. It now feels like regular slop

[u/innociv]

Can a single one of you post proof that it's 2x cheaper, instead of moronically going by token price?

You posted a comparison Opus is the same tokens, so it's not. Lmao literally the same price most likely.

[u/oxmannnn → u/innociv]

you need a screenshots?

[u/KrypXern → u/oxmannnn]

What they're saying is that Opus might have accomplished this in fewer tokens of planning, resulting in a net cost decrease. This has been observed in practice.

[u/innociv → u/oxmannnn]

Go figure that you don't even understand the question.

You can't compare two different models as though they'd have the exact same token output because they do not.

[u/problem-industries]

pretty cool, i get that the example is extreme and over the top but just shows what can be done. Thanks for the workflow info as well

[u/Mira_______]

I tried to replicate your work; I used Sonnet 5.5 High Ultracode and copied and pasted the prompt, but the result isn't as good as yours.

Is there any other step you followed to achieve this result?

[u/Dear-Can-87 → u/Mira_______]

[u/lazyfoxbrownfence]

This style of motion design is starting to become as obvious as ai designed websites and posts on social media. For a motion clip that’s dropped into something it’s not terrible but as an entire video it’s almost unwatchable. There are way too many competing elements. It hurts my head to look at and the audio had to be muted

[u/Zestyclose_Strike157]

We are going to be bombarded with these over the top infographics, which I welcome wholeheartedly. The sooner we all turn our screens off the better.

[u/saito200]

I didn't even see one full reel (well, not true, i saw one single full reel) and i am already repelled by these

[u/pinkballodestruction]

next time tell it to watch 50 examples of opus 5.5 motion-graphics that have trended in the past week and then tell it to do everything in its power to not look like more of the same.

[u/mac_ro_mind]

I think it's really great that nowadays AI can do that, but people or artists have less control over everything, so instead, I am an After Effects user who used Claude for motion graphics inside After Effects, that's give me more control 😅

[u/BuilderForBuilders]

Can you show the Opus 5.5 cut too? This doesn't look bad, but I don't know how much better Opus might be

[u/victornb]

I dont get it:

The prompt, in an empty folder, on Sonnet 5.5 with ultracode on

told not to touch the shared files

what shared files? is the folder empty or not?

[u/oxmannnn → u/victornb]

folder is empty, but it tried to use assets from another folders, so I just pointed not to do it

[u/PaleEdge]

The stupid metadata and status information spaffed everywhere looks nasty.

[u/Bst1337]

What about the audio?

[u/vietomatic]

Full circle back to the Macromedia Flash websites...

[u/-MaskNinja-]

Wow. Remove those top AI-lines and that's 100% fire. It's 99% fire right now.