Secret Santa invite video: a card image, a clip, and the rules

To invite your team to a Secret Santa, generate one card image with google/nano-banana-2.1 ($0.10), animate it into a 5-second clip with Wan 3.0 at 480p ($0.3125), and burn the rules onto it as caption cues ($0.20). Total on Sume: $0.6125 for a silent clip you can drop into Slack, email or a group chat. Names and the draw stay in your own tool; the clip only carries the rules.

What goes on the card?

Keep it to a festive background with a clear empty band for text. Ask for the scene, not the words: a wrapped box on a desk, string lights, a mug, space at the top. Generated text inside images can come out misspelled, so leave the wording to the caption cues, which burn exactly the text you send.

The Image API docs (read 2026-10-11) list google/nano-banana-2.1 among the model ids. Each response carries a cost field with the USD Sume bills to your wallet, so you can check the $0.10 yourself. A single card is enough; generate two or three if you want to pick.

How do I animate it and add the rules?

Send the card as the first_frame in frame_images to a Wan 3.0 video job, as described in the video docs (read 2026-10-11), and ask for a small motion: lights twinkling, a slow camera push. Wan accepts 2 to 30 seconds.

Then run a caption job with cues. The captions docs (read 2026-10-11) say a silent clip must use cues or it fails with caption_no_speech. Each cue needs text, start and end in seconds.

• 0 to 1.5 s: Secret Santa is on.
• 1.5 to 3 s: Budget: $25. Draw closes Dec 4.
• 3 to 5 s: Reply to Sam to join. Gifts open Dec 18.
• Use your own dates and amounts; the ones here are placeholders.

What does it cost?

The numbers use the Sume rate for each job: Wan 3.0 480p at $0.0625 a second, the flat $0.20 caption job, and the image rate shown in the catalog.

Should the clip name people?

Not in the clip. Anyone who receives the link can forward the video, and a list of names with assignments defeats the point. Put the sign-up link and the date in the message, and keep the pairings in whatever spreadsheet or app you use. Add one line about etiquette in the cues rather than the message if you want it seen: keep gifts light, no gag items that single someone out, and a fallback for anyone who cannot join. A neutral, warm tone matters more than polish, because a card and a five-second clip are all the production an office exchange needs. If you need a different version per team, rerun only the caption job with new cues on the same clean clip: that costs $0.20 per variant instead of $0.5125 for a fresh render.