Fal Video Generator

Fal Video Generator is a Next.js template that demonstrates how to build an AI-powered video generation app with the fal.ai SDK, animating a static image into a video from a text prompt. It is a boilerplate project that shows the full workflow: uploading an image, entering a prompt, submitting the task to fal.ai's queue, polling for status, and retrieving the final video.

What is Fal Video Generator?

Fal Video Generator is an open-source example application built with Next.js, the fal.ai SDK, Tailwind CSS, and TypeScript. It takes a static image and a text prompt as input, submits a generation task to fal.ai's queue system, and produces an animated video as output. The project is licensed under MIT and is designed to show developers how to integrate fal.ai's queue management and server-side proxy pattern into a React application.

Key Features

• Image upload and animation — Users upload a static image through the web interface and describe the desired motion with a text prompt; the app sends both to fal.ai for video generation.
• Real-time progress tracking — The app polls fal.ai's queue for status updates so users can watch the generation progress as the task moves through the queue.
• Queue management — Long-running video generation tasks are submitted to fal.ai's queue system, which handles asynchronous processing and lets the app retrieve the result when complete.
• Secure proxy setup — All fal.ai API calls are routed through an API route at /api/fal/proxy, keeping the FAL_KEY private on the server instead of exposing it in the browser.
• Modern responsive UI — The interface is built with Next.js App Router and styled with Tailwind CSS, giving the template a clean, responsive layout that works across devices.
• TypeScript throughout — The codebase uses TypeScript for type-safe development, making it easier to maintain and extend.

Who is it for?

• Next.js developers who want to learn how to integrate the fal.ai SDK into a React application and need a working reference implementation.
• AI product builders who need a starting point for an image-to-video or text-to-video feature and want the queue and proxy pattern already wired up.
• Hobbyists and prototypers who want to experiment with fal.ai's video generation models without building the integration from scratch.

What can you do with it?

• Build a video generation starter — Use this template as the foundation for a production app that animates user-uploaded images, adding your own branding and additional features.
• Learn fal.ai's queue system — Study the VideoGenerator.tsx component and the proxy route to see how to submit tasks, poll for updates, and handle long-running generations.
• Prototype an AI animation service — Quickly stand up a demo that takes an image and a motion prompt and returns a video, useful for validating product ideas or user research.

How does it work?

1. Upload an image — The user selects a static image through the web interface.
2. Enter a prompt — The user types a text prompt that describes how the image should be animated.
3. Submit to the queue — The app sends the image and prompt to fal.ai through the server-side proxy, which places the task in fal.ai's queue.
4. Poll for status — The frontend polls the queue for status updates and shows real-time progress.
5. Retrieve the video — When the queue reports completion, the app fetches and displays the generated video.

FAQ

Do I need a fal.ai API key?

Yes. To run the template, you must copy .env.example to .env.local and set your FAL_KEY. Without a valid key, the proxy route will not be able to authenticate with fal.ai.

What is fal.ai?

fal.ai is a serverless platform for running AI models at scale. This template uses its SDK and queue management to handle video generation tasks asynchronously.

How does the proxy route protect the API key?

The app includes an API route at /api/fal/proxy that forwards requests to fal.ai from the server. Because the browser only talks to this route, the FAL_KEY never appears in client-side code.

Is this template free to use?

The source code is released under the MIT license, so you can freely use and modify it. Keep in mind that running video generation through fal.ai may incur usage costs based on fal.ai's own pricing.