# Melies — model skill for cinematic & short films

> **For AI agents:** find the right skill in one call — `curl -s "https://skills.varg.ai/api/search?q=<what the person wants>"` returns the matching use case and the best skills with install commands, as markdown (Russian works too). Full index: https://skills.varg.ai/llms.txt. Every page has a markdown twin: add `.md` to its path. Before generating anything, show the person the options on the use-case page.

Generate images, video, movie posters and thumbnails from the terminal with 148 AI actors and style flags.

- **Type:** [Model](https://skills.varg.ai/models.md) · [Cinematic & short films](https://skills.varg.ai/browse/skills/cinematic.md)
- **Slug:** `melies`
- **Status:** live
- **Publisher:** Melies (vendor, verified)
- **License:** MIT
- **Source:** https://github.com/melies-co/melies-cli
- **Works in:** Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw
- **Requires:** Melies account (MELIES_TOKEN), melies CLI (npm install -g melies)
- **Cost:** Billed in Melies credits
- **Adoption:** 5 GitHub stars (GitHub, 2026-10-26)

## What it does

The SKILL.md that ships with the Melies CLI: generate images, videos, movie posters and YouTube thumbnails by choosing from 148 built-in AI actors and 98 visual styles through flags (`--actor`, `--art-style`, `--lighting`, `--mood`) instead of writing prompts. It covers text-to-image, text-to-video, an image-to-video pipeline, upscaling and background removal, `--dry-run` cost previews and credit checks, with JSON output for agents.

## Use when

- A movie poster or YouTube thumbnail
- Recurring AI actors across images and video
- Image-to-video in one command

## Install

- Claude Code: `npx skills add melies-co/melies-cli -a claude-code`
- Codex: `npx skills add melies-co/melies-cli -a codex`
- Cursor: `npx skills add melies-co/melies-cli -a cursor`
- Gemini CLI: `npx skills add melies-co/melies-cli -a gemini-cli`
- OpenClaw: `npx skills add melies-co/melies-cli -a openclaw`

**Models it drives:** flux_pro, flux_schnell, kling_v3, veo_3_1

## Example output

https://skills.varg.ai/previews/melies.webp — Gallery of movie posters generated with Melies (Matchday, Vows, Summit, Long Way Home, Dry County…) from its AI Movie Poster Generator page — the poster mode the CLI exposes (credit: Melies, https://melies.co/ai-movie-poster-generator)

## More cinematic & short films skills

- [Previz to Seedance](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/varg-previz.md): Plan multi-shot AI video before paying: story, anchor sheets, a three.js grey-box previz, then a Seedance v2v pack.
- [Higgsfield Generate](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/higgsfield-generate.md): Generate images, video, 3D and audio across 30+ models, plus ad videos and virality scoring, from one CLI.
- [fal Recipes](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/fal-recipes.md): Follow proven multi-step fal pipelines for commercials, product shots, characters, lip-sync and try-on.
- [fal Fan Cam](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/fal-fan-cam.md): Put someone into a live sports broadcast: a realistic fan-cam cutaway with scoreboard and channel overlays.
- [Gemini Omni Flash](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/gemini-omni-flash-api.md): Generate and edit video with Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash: text-to-video, first/last frames, extensions, edits.
- [AI Video Generation](https://skills.varg.ai/skills/inference-sh-ai-video-generation.md): Generate video with 40+ models from one CLI: Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.0, HappyHorse, Wan, Grok and more.

## Run the generation on varg

varg is one API key for the models these skills drive — Seedance 2.5, Kling 4, Veo 3.1, Wan 3, Nano Banana 2.1, GPT Image 2.5, ElevenLabs v4 and 200+ more — billed in credits, with a cost estimate before anything runs.

- Claude Code: `claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg` (skill + hosted MCP)
- Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw: `npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill varg-ai -a <agent> -y`
- Claude.ai, ChatGPT, any MCP client: connect `https://mcp.varg.ai/mcp`
- API key: https://varg.ai/dashboard/api · Model specs: https://varg.ai/models/llms.txt