Lessons from Building ActSolo.AI - An AI Teleprompter and Scene Partner for My Wife

131 messages sent, 73 AI edits, and some extra ‘credits’ later, I’ve reached the end of a 2-week sprint in my first project with Loveable.

The inspiration started at home: My wife, an actor, needed a better way to rehearse and record lines for auditions without depending on my availability as her “scene partner.” With two young kids, it’s nearly impossible to narrow down quiet time with both of us to record scenes without some extra help.

We had settled on creating separate recordings for a while, combining them in post, but it never felt very natural. That’s what inspired me to try building a teleprompter web-based solution.

So I set out to build: ActSolo.AI.

ActSolo.AI is a web-based AI teleprompter where actors will be able to copy/paste scripts, assign AI voices (from ElevenLabs) that would actively read their ‘scenes’ with them with emotive control. Yes, AI is coming even for scene readers.

I started planning:

• Wrote a product requirements doc (PRD – outlines requirements, costs, features, etc.)

• Defined risks: voice tech, script logic, session reliability, devices, legal stuff

• Built a work breakdown structure (WBS – breakdown of project scope)

• Uploaded all of my specific details to ChatGPT as my co-developer since I already had a subscription plan and then to Loveable. The product was coming together

Tech stack:

• Loveable

• Supabase for backend logs and data

• Integrated with ElevenLabs API for the high quality of their voices and for the Text-to-Speech capabilities

Here is a screenshot of the rehearsal page with the voices from ElevenLabs scroll open in order to view and select a variety of different voices to rehearse from. Actors can actively edit their scrip while rehearsing, view the screen in full, zoom in/out, control speeds, and assign lines for the AI to read by bolding or using italics.

The Journey - Phase One

Supabase handled everything well and it’s been amazing to review the logs when troubleshooting. The backend was almost never the source of my biggest problems.

Instead, I realized most recently, it’s the browser’s native Web Speech limitations, across Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.

Throughout the project, I would make little strides here and there, feeling waves of happiness, then run into errors, where the app wasn’t listening like I needed it to, or it wouldn’t read the script text.

Unexpectedly, I spent about 90% of the time:

• Reviewing code

• Setting log creation and reviewing logs

• Debugging filters

• Trying to realize why the AI wouldn’t stop speaking. Why it did start speaking…

• Testing into browser dev tools

At times I was pulling my hair out…but it’s been an awesome experience to build and own the product with these ‘vibe-coding’ tools.

I spent a week refactoring, building smarter state machines to make the rehearsal flow more predictable, maintainable, and extensible while reducing bugs, but I should’ve done this sooner.

I chased edge cases and learned a lot with ChatGPT as my co-developer, note taker, and prompt refiner.

So, nothing on the backend, no major issues with ElevenLabs—just browser quirks and limitations that I didn’t realize until recently, which finally made me realize that I'm going to need to change things up.

Key lessons:

• Just build it, and test: I still saved time, money, sanity, and learned a bunch building with Loveable. I can't wait to try building something new

• Of course, put the user first: If native tools don’t cut it, it’s smarter to pivot

• Platform limits: No amount of clever prompting and code with client-side solutions will make browser voice limitations work like I want (yet). This project will need server-side processing to handle heavy lifting.

• Logs are a real resource: I was able to find where the issues really were

• Chat management: At first, I likely burned through credits too quickly but then I became more strict and found a good prompt rhythm with GPT before going back to Loveable with changes.

Phase Two

After my first sprint, I thought I’d need to build a full cloud-based stack to enable real-time voice interaction in ActSolo.AI.

Then, while researching another project, I came across OpenAI’s Realtime API + Voice Activity Detection (VAD) - and it clicked.

Now, instead of spinning up a whole new part of this project, I’m actively working on updating the ActSolo teleprompter to support speech-to-speech (S2S) in its current state.

With the ability to keep the mic open, the OpenAI addition will enable:

- Cue-word detection
- Detection when the user has started or stopped speaking
- Turn-taking based on end-of-speech so the AI voices from ElevenLabs respond naturally when an actor finishes their line

At this stage, this project has become complex. It started to need some real engineering so I began using VS Code with Lovable to fully support the build.

I’m sure this is old news for developers but…VS Code has been awesome for a first-time user:

- I upload my .md project plans so I can always reference them with Lovable
- I ask questions and debug in context, using Agent + Chat modes
- Every edit is tracked - I can test, debug, and more easily see the full project components
- Most importantly, it cuts down on Lovable credits by reducing chat volume

Recently, I was happy to have successfully debugged and connected the OpenAI API locally through the Terminal after Lovable was having errors figuring it out.

With the help of a custom GPT, I figured out how to:
- Run Supabase CLI commands
- Set and update secrets
- Deploy edge functions
- Customize logs and test error flows in real time

Now, I’m not a developer, but for every new project, I’m going to utilize VSC with Lovable and would recommend for anyone starting out with it to also include it in their workflow.

What’s Next

When all of this comes together for a reliable, actor-friendly, cross-device rehearsal experience, then, we will eventually make this a product offering under my wife’s business, Cameraon Creative.

If you’re reading this and have any feedback, please reach out!