🎬 Create Ken Burns zoom video clips from text prompts with Pollinations and FFmpeg
⚡ 169 views · 🎬 Content Creation & Video
Description
Quick overview
This self-hosted workflow collects a text prompt and clip length, generates a 1080×1920 image via Pollinations, then uses local FFmpeg to create a vertical MP4 with a Ken Burns-style slow zoom and returns the output file paths.
How it works
- Receives an image prompt and desired clip length from an n8n form.
- Appends cinematic style keywords, URL-encodes the prompt, and builds per-run file paths in a unique
/tmpfolder. - Creates the temporary output folder on disk.
- Downloads the AI image from Pollinations using
curland saves it to the temp folder. - Uses FFmpeg to crop/scale the image to 1080×1920 and render a zoompan animation into an H.264 MP4 of the requested duration.
- Checks FFmpeg’s exit code and returns the image path, video path, prompt, and clip length.
Setup
- Run this workflow on a self-hosted n8n instance with the Execute Command node enabled (it is not available on n8n Cloud).
- Install
curlandffmpeg(withlibx264) on the n8n host and ensure both are available on the system PATH. - Ensure n8n is allowed to write to the configured temp location (default
/tmp) and adjust the output directory in the code step if your environment restricts filesystem access.
Requirements
- No API key or account anywhere in this workflow - Pollinations is a free, keyless image API
Customization
- Change zoom speed or ceiling by editing zoom+0.0012 / 1.15 in the FFmpeg command, or swap in any other keyless image API by editing the URL in the first Code node
Additional info
The zoompan filter’s d parameter (frame count) is computed from your requested Clip Length x fps, so the zoom always finishes exactly at the end of the clip regardless of duration - it isn’t hardcoded to one fixed length. This template outputs video only, no audio track; pair it with a separate voiceover/TTS template to add sound. Tested end to end: image download and zoom render both verified on a real run before submission.
Pair this with Render faceless vertical shorts (https://n8n.io/workflows/17566-render-faceless-vertical-shorts-with-gemini-or-claude-edge-tts-and-ffmpeg/), which chains this same Pollinations + Ken Burns technique together with script generation, TTS voiceover and karaoke captions into one workflow that goes straight from topic to finished vertical video.
🔗 Nodes Used
n8n Form Trigger
📥 Import
Download workflow.json and import into n8n:
Workflow menu → Import from File