What If Chopin Had ElevenLabs?

Last week I joined the ElevenLabs hackathon at the Théâtre de l'IA in Paris — a one-day, in-person sprint where teams build something creative using AI.

The Concept

Our team of four tackled a question: What if Chopin had access to ElevenLabs tools?

The idea was to produce a one-minute video clip reimagining the composer with modern AI capabilities — voice synthesis, image generation, music. A short film where the past meets generative AI.

The Stack (and the Twist)

Ironically, for an ElevenLabs hackathon, we ended up using Gemini far more than ElevenLabs itself. The image generation workflow with Gemini was so effective for our visual storytelling that it became the backbone of the project.

We used:

• Gemini — image generation for the visual narrative
• ElevenLabs — voice synthesis (sparingly)
• Quick editing to stitch everything into a coherent one-minute clip

The Result

We shipped a one-minute video and presented it at the end of the day. You can watch it here.

We won a free month of ElevenLabs — not bad for a day's work.

Takeaways

• Scope ruthlessly — with only a few hours, the MVP is the product
• Use the best tool for the job — even at an ElevenLabs hackathon, Gemini was the right call for images
• Team of 4 is the sweet spot — enough to parallelize, small enough to stay aligned
• In-person energy matters — a one-day event lives or dies on momentum
• Great people make great hackathons — the team was fantastic to exchange ideas with, and that made all the difference

If you get the chance to join, do it. One day is enough to surprise yourself.