Fameplay is an Emmy Award-winning production studio based in Prague that specializes in film, television, animation, and audiovisual storytelling. Since 2018, the company has produced everything from live-action shows and animated series to digital entertainment platforms and branded content. In 2023, the company saw a major shift coming.
“When ChatGPT came along, we started to look into audiovisual tools and how generative AI could help in the audiovisual industry,” said Lukáš Záhoř, Chief Producer and Co-Founder at Fameplay.
For a production company based in the Czech Republic, scaling globally had always been difficult. Czech is spoken by only about 10 million people, limiting the reach of locally produced content. “You always end up as a local producer here,” Lukáš explained.
That changed when Fameplay discovered HeyGen. By combining AI avatars with video translation and dubbing workflows, Fameplay transformed from a local production studio into a producer of multilingual global content.
“For me, it was a gateway to becoming a producer of global content,” Lukáš said.
Pushing past the limits of traditional production and localization
Before adopting HeyGen, Fameplay’s clients relied entirely on traditional production workflows.
“The only way to get a video produced was for them to take the time to go to the studio, get ready for filming, shoot it, then wait for the edit and review the edit,” Lukáš said.
The process was expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to scale. Producing multilingual content was even more complicated. Translation agencies could provide subtitles or captions, but full international video localization was largely inaccessible for many clients due to cost and production complexity.
“We didn’t produce international content until we connected all these steps for localization,” Lukáš explained.
Some projects faced an even bigger challenge: the presenters themselves didn’t exist. One of Fameplay’s major current projects involves creating synthetic sports news anchors for Flashscore, the global sports results platform used by millions of fans worldwide.
“They wanted a face for all the countries they’re present in,” Lukáš said.
Instead of hiring presenters in every market, Fameplay synthesized AI avatars to deliver localised content globally.
“This enabled them to have international content,” he said.
Choosing HeyGen for avatar quality and localization
As Fameplay evaluated the growing number of AI video tools entering the market, the team ran a side-by-side test of multiple avatar and dubbing platforms, such as Synthesia.
“We tested different tools every day and every night,” Lukáš said.
The company ultimately chose HeyGen because of its realism.
“We realized that the quality of the lip-sync, even with the first versions, was simply superior,” Lukáš explained.
That quality mattered because Fameplay wasn’t experimenting casually with AI. The company was delivering professional production work for paying clients and needed consistent, believable results.
“We don’t rely on it as a toy. It’s a professional tool,” Lukáš said.
Fameplay became one of HeyGen’s early agency partners, purchasing roughly 50 Avatar Studio slots and building a production workflow around the platform. The company also worked closely with the HeyGen team, providing feedback that helped shape agency-focused features such as subspaces.
Today, Fameplay not only creates avatar content for clients but also trains internal client teams to produce videos themselves in HeyGen.
Building scalable multilingual AI productions
With HeyGen integrated into its production pipeline, Fameplay developed a workflow optimized for scalable AI-driven content creation.
Every project starts with scripting and voice generation. The team combines HeyGen avatars with professional voice cloning workflows to create realistic multilingual performances.
“We always start with a script. We never improvise,” Lukáš said.
The result is a system capable of producing multilingual content at scale while preserving character consistency and visual realism.
One of the company’s standout projects is International Volleyball Academy, a YouTube series that has been running for three years in English, Spanish, and German. The show uses an AI avatar of a real volleyball coach who wanted to preserve and share his training expertise globally.
“He always wanted to have his skills and knowledge preserved,” Lukáš said.
Because the coach still actively travels and trains athletes internationally, traditional production would have been difficult to sustain. Instead, Fameplay built an ongoing AI-powered educational series using HeyGen avatars alongside real footage.
Another major success came through multilingual localization. One Fameplay-produced show expanded from Czech into seven additional languages.
“That’s amazing, a big step forward in reaching a new audience,” Lukáš said.
Becoming a producer of global content
For Fameplay, HeyGen represents more than production efficiency. It fundamentally changed the company’s business model and creative reach.
“What’s amazing is seeing that a company like ours here in Central Europe, focusing on AI audiovisual production, and HeyGen, a startup in LA and San Francisco, went through the same phases of finding the right business model,” Lukáš said.
Today, Fameplay operates as both a production studio and an AI enablement partner for brands, creators, and media companies. Clients can work fully managed through Fameplay’s production services or use subspaces to create content independently with agency support.
At the centre of that workflow is HeyGen.
“For me, HeyGen is the anchor for character consistency and lip-sync,” Lukáš said.
By combining AI avatars, multilingual video translation, and scalable production workflows, Fameplay transformed itself from a local Czech production company into a creator of truly global content.
