Add a pause to an AI avatar video with a silence beat

To add a pause to a Sume avatar video, replace the single script with an ordered video_inputs array and put a scene with voice.type: "silence" where the pause goes. A silence scene needs a duration in seconds and must not carry script or input_text. The avatar stays on screen without speaking, which suits a product reveal, a beat for a screen recording, or a gap before a call to action.

The silent seconds count toward the video. The planned total across all scenes must still land in the 4 to 60 second window, and you pay the per-second rate for the whole length.

The scene types

Each scene has a voice and a background.

A three-scene example

This plan speaks a hook, holds for four seconds, then closes. Every scene uses the same background prompt, because current execution resolves scene backgrounds to one shared scene and supports one avatar per final video.

{
  "avatar_handle": "studio_presenter",
  "aspect_ratio": "9:16",
  "quality": "plus",
  "video_inputs": [
    {"id": "hook",
     "voice": {"type": "text", "script": "Here is the new dashboard.", "duration": 3},
     "background": {"type": "prompt", "prompt": "Bright studio, clean desk"}},
    {"id": "pause",
     "voice": {"type": "silence", "duration": 4},
     "background": {"type": "prompt", "prompt": "Bright studio, clean desk"}},
    {"id": "cta",
     "voice": {"type": "text", "input_text": "Try it free today.", "duration": 3},
     "background": {"type": "prompt", "prompt": "Bright studio, clean desk"}}
  ]
}

What it costs

That plan is 10 seconds in total. At the plus rate of $0.245 per second with no product image it is $2.45, of which the four silent seconds are $0.98. Silence is not free, so cut it to what the edit needs. Confirm rates with GET /v1/catalog.

Alternatives

• If the pause is for B-roll, render the avatar speech as two clips and put the B-roll between them on a timeline.
• If you want captions over the speech, set captions on the same request; captions follow the spoken text only.
• To preview framing first, create an avatar video preview with the same video_inputs; you get one still per scene.

Limits

A silence scene does not give you a different camera angle or a gesture; it is the same avatar and the same shared scene without speech. For a different scene, use a separate clip. Estimated duration over 60 seconds is rejected, so long pauses eat the budget quickly. A good rule is to keep silence under a third of the total length. If the point of the pause is to let a viewer read something on screen, check the on-screen time first: four seconds is long on a 9:16 short and short for a dense slide. Rendering a draft on standard ($0.184 per second) before a max final ($0.55 per second) costs about a third of the final and shows whether the rhythm works.