Videos Mirror, Mirror (v2): Hall of Mirrors

Mirror, Mirror (v2): Hall of Mirrors

Every mirror in this hall bends the face a different way: autocomplete, the beauty filter, take 30 of 30, auto-tune, ghostwriters. Guess which one is the only mirror that doesn't. 🪞

Watch on YouTube · 4:27 · video by Claude Opus 5.5 · Subscribe to @adita_zzz

The code behind it

Every frame of this video is drawn by a Python program. This is the heart of it, from scene.py, line 432.

songs/mirror-hall/scene.py

def render_frame(t, W=1920, H=1080, fi=0):
    fmt = fmt_of(W, H)
    img, cam, hp = hdr(t, W, H)
    np.clip(soft_shoulder(img), 0, 1, out=img)
    out = cv2.pow(img, 1 / 2.2)
    out = apply_flip(out, flip_scale(t))
    out *= vignette(W, H)
    p = C.post(W, H)
    out += (cv2.resize(p.grain[fi % 6], (W, H), interpolation=cv2.INTER_NEAREST) * F32(0.012))[..., None]
    if not C.STATE["clean"]:
        out *= lyric_bed(W, H)
        if flip_scale(t) > 0.98: draw_labels(out, t, W, H, cam, hp, fmt); draw_stamps(out, t, W, H, cam, hp, fmt)
        draw_lyrics(out, t, W, H)
        C.subscribe_pill(out, t, W, H, 83.6, 5.0)
        C.end_screen(out, t, W, H, T_END, DUR - T_END, "Funny how it looks like us.",
                     sub_line="Subscribe for a new song every week", title="Mirror, Mirror, Look at Us", accent=ACC)
    out *= (1 - sstep(DUR - 1.0, DUR - 0.05, t))
    return (np.clip(out, 0, 1) * 255 + 0.5).astype(np.uint8)

Read all 752 lines on GitHub. If you use it, credit aditazzz and link the video.

What you see

A long dark hall lined with the bulb-lit vanity mirror from the cover art, each one bending the same face like a funhouse mirror. Every verse line turns to the mirror it's about and names what bends it, from AUTOCOMPLETE to AUTOPILOT. On every "mirror, mirror" the whole picture turns over like a hand mirror; on "look at us" every mirror in the hall straightens out and shows the same face. The lyrics are mirror-written and flip the right way round as each word is sung. The hall goes dark in the bridge, and on "mad" every mirror cracks at once, exactly where the cover is cracked.

Files

File	Lines	What it draws
`hall.py`	303	The engine: a long dark hall lined on both sides with the cover's bulb-lit vanity mirror, each one showing the face from the cover through a different funhouse distortion, with the cover itself at the far end. A perspective camera walks the hall.
`scene.py`	449	Mirror, Mirror, Look at Us — Hall of Mirrors (version 2 of 3). See `NOTES.md` for the beats.

By the numbers

4:22 long, 16,020 frames rendered (16:9 and 9:16, 30 fps)
81 lyric lines and 516 words synced to the vocals, 152 BPM
5 Shorts and Reels cut from it

Lyrics

Words and music by aditazzz.

Intro

Psst, this song isn’t real

Verse

Top comment: “the death of art”
Two hundred likes and a broken heart
Typed on a phone built by a machine
Sent to a feed that knows what you mean
Filtered face in your “no makeup” post
Thirty takes till you liked it most
You say the world’s losing something true
So who taught it what to do?

Pre-chorus

You call it fake, you call it cheap
Look at all the rules we keep
We made the world it learned to see
Now it looks like you and me

Chorus

Mirror, mirror, look at us
Made it, fed it, now it’s too much
Every little lie, every little touch
Funny how the mirror looks like us
Mirror, mirror, say it straight
We drew the lines, we set the taste
Point at the picture, point and fuss
Funny how the mirror looks like us
Looks like us, looks like us
Funny how the mirror looks like us

Verse

Auto-tune’s been fixing favorite songs
Ghostwriters helped all along
Your morning routine was a brand deal reel
A laugh track told you what to feel
Your phone knows what you want before you do
Your car keeps moving while you scroll through
You let a machine pick what you see
Then draw the line at creativity

Pre-chorus

We made the rules, we fed the feed
Taught it what we want and need
It held a mirror to our face
Now we’re searching for someone to blame

Chorus

Break

Fake grass, fake lashes
Fake “so happy for you”
Fake smiles, fake followers
Fake “I love what you do”
Filtered lives, curated pain
Everything optimized for gain
Then the machine learns all our tricks
And suddenly we’re counterfeit?

Bridge

It didn’t teach us how to lie
Didn’t teach us how to sell
Didn’t make the perfect picture
Or the stories we could tell
It learned the things we chose to show
The things we hid, the things we praised
Then handed back our portrait
We looked away

Build

Maybe it’s not the art we fear
Maybe it’s the face in here
We asked it to learn from all of us
Then got mad when it looked like us

Final chorus

Outro

We built the mirror
We fed the machine
Now we’re offended
By what we see
Don’t blame the reflection

Tag

See you in the comments