Building on the earlier suggestion, VEO is definitely one to watch, though keep in mind cloud-based AI is usually pretty stingy with free credits. Over the years I've tested dozens of these and the technical overhead usually determines how free it actually stays for the user. Quick question before I dive deep into the specs... what kind of style are you aiming for? Are we talking short 5-second cinematic clips or longer explainer videos? In my experience, these are the best starting points right now:

• Runway Gen-2 Free Tier - gives you a limited credit pool of 125 credits, but the Gen-2 motion control is top tier for cinematic stuff.
• Leonardo.ai Motion - they give you a daily token refresh of 150 tokens, which is great for consistent testing.
• CapCut Desktop Version - isnt a pure generator but has the best AI tools for editing, like auto-captions and background removal, for zero cost. Let me know what your hardware looks like too, cuz if you have a decent GPU with at least 8GB VRAM, there are way better open-source options I can walk you through.

Google VEO 2, but you need to join the waitlist.