Everything Runway Can Do That You're Probably Not Using Yet
Most Runway users use Gen-4.5, Motion Brush, and the basic editor. Here's what else is in the platform — Act-Two, Aleph, Inpainting, Lip Sync, Workflows — and when each one is actually worth using.
Most people who pay for Runway use two or three of its features. Gen-4.5 for video generation, maybe Motion Brush for a specific shot, and the basic editor for trimming and export. That's a reasonable starting point — but it means they're paying for a platform that does significantly more than they're getting from it.
Here's what's actually in there, organized by how useful each tool is for practical production work.
Act-Two: performance capture without a mocap studio
Act-Two is the most underused serious tool in Runway's lineup. It lets you record your own facial expressions, head movements, body gestures, and hand positions on camera — using any webcam or uploaded reference video — and map that performance onto an AI-generated character.
The practical application: you want a generated character to perform a specific emotional beat, gesture, or line reading that you can't reliably get from a text prompt. Instead of iterating through dozens of generations hoping the model produces the right performance, you act it out yourself and Act-Two transfers it to the character. The character's appearance stays AI-generated; the performance is yours.
This is how a seven-person VFX team used Runway on "Everything Everywhere All at Once" — not to generate finished shots, but to handle performance-dependent work that would otherwise require significantly more time or a larger crew. Act-Two is available on Pro and Max plans.
Aleph: edit a frame, change the whole clip
Aleph is Runway's in-video editing model, available in Edit Studio. The workflow: select a frame from an existing clip, make a change to that frame — add a prop, change the lighting, remove an element, alter the visual style — and Aleph propagates that change through the rest of the clip while maintaining motion and temporal consistency.
The use cases that matter: fixing a problem in a generated clip without regenerating the whole thing (saving credits), adding elements that weren't in the original prompt, matching a clip's visual style to adjacent shots in a sequence, and removing unwanted elements without frame-by-frame work. It costs 15 credits per second — more expensive than Gen-4 Turbo but cheaper than a full Gen-4.5 regeneration for fixing a single issue.
Inpainting: remove objects from existing footage
Runway's inpainting tool works on existing video footage — not just AI-generated clips. Select an area of a clip, describe what should replace it, and the model fills it in while maintaining the surrounding video. The most practical applications: removing boom mics, boom shadows, crew members, logos that need to be replaced, and unwanted background elements.
It's not perfect with complex occlusion (when something moves behind the object being removed), but for stationary objects against clean backgrounds it saves significant manual rotoscoping work. This is available on paid plans and draws from the same credit pool.
Background removal: clean keying without green screen
Runway's background removal tool isolates subjects from footage without needing a physical green screen. Select a clip, apply background removal, and the subject is separated from the background — ready for compositing. For solo creators or small crews who don't have access to a green screen setup, this makes clean compositing work practically accessible.
Quality is better on footage with clear separation between subject and background — complex hair and transparent elements are still challenging. But for standard talking-head or interview footage, it works reliably enough to use in production.
Lip Sync: synchronize audio to existing video
Runway's Lip Sync tool takes uploaded audio — a voiceover, dialogue recording, or generated speech from ElevenLabs or similar — and animates the mouth movements in an existing video clip to match it. It supports multiple faces in the same frame and handles clips up to 45 seconds.
The workflow it enables: generate a character clip in Gen-4.5, record or generate the dialogue separately in a dedicated audio tool, then use Lip Sync to marry them together. This is the audio workflow for Runway users until Runway adds native audio generation — and for users who need a specific voice rather than whatever Veo 3.1 generates.
Workflows: automated pipelines for high-volume production
Runway's Workflows is a node-based system that lets you chain multiple AI operations into automated pipelines. The example that makes the value clear: generate a clip → apply a style transfer → upscale to 4K → export in multiple formats — all as one automated process that runs without manual intervention between steps.
For studios and agencies producing AI video at volume — dozens of clips per project, multiple projects per week — Workflows removes the manual handoffs between generation steps. For solo creators making one video per week, it's more complexity than the workload requires. Worth knowing it exists when your volume grows to the point that repetitive steps become a real time cost.
Characters: real-time interactive avatars
Runway's newest addition, Characters (launched March 2026), generates photorealistic conversational avatars from a single reference image — natural facial expressions, eye movements, and lip sync, in real time. It's built on Runway's GWM-1 world model rather than the Gen-4 video generation pipeline.
It's early-stage compared to the rest of Runway's toolkit, and it's not the right tool for narrative video production. But for customer service avatars, educational content with a consistent presenter, or any use case that needs a real-time interactive character rather than a pre-rendered clip, it's worth knowing it exists.
Frame Interpolation: smoother slow motion from existing footage
Runway's frame interpolation tool generates additional frames between existing frames in a clip, smoothing motion or enabling slow-motion effects from footage that wasn't shot at high frame rate. Not a flashy tool, but a useful one for making existing footage — including AI-generated clips — feel smoother without the specific camera requirements that high-frame-rate shooting normally demands.
The honest summary
Most Runway users are getting roughly this much value from their subscription: Gen-4.5 video generation + Motion Brush + basic editor. The tools above — Act-Two, Aleph, Inpainting, Lip Sync, Workflows — are available on the same plan most of those users are already paying for. Whether they're worth learning depends on the specific work, but knowing they exist is the first step to deciding.
