# Subtitled monologue, angle cuts — rebuild sheet

A street interview with a homeless man in Chicago, reposted by an account under its own pinned hook line, subtitled two words at a time — 1,583,175 views, 129,140 likes, 57.58s.

**Why it works** — The captions are speech fragments that never finish a sentence ("like you" → "walk past" → "a bad day"), so there is no clean place to leave; the pinned header line promises a perspective change and only his face can settle it. The cuts between tight close-ups and wider street angles of the same man keep one continuous monologue from ever looking like a static talking head.

## The beats

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| all runtime | Header card pinned unchanged over every frame: account name + tick, and the hook line beneath it | `Inside History ✓` / `Homeless man called a bum, this will change your perspective 💔` |
| 4.61s | Tight handheld close-up on the man — dark grey knitted beanie, teal-green jacket — filling the frame, head slightly lowered, city storefront blurred behind, overcast daylight | `like you` |
| 13.82s | Wider street angle: same man side-on at a stone building wall in the rain, pedestrians under umbrellas passing between him and the camera | `walk past` |
| 23.03s | Street level, closer: a passer-by in a blue beanie with a black-and-orange backpack seen from behind at frame left, the man in green at frame right facing them | `a bad day` — "bad" set in red |
| 32.24s | Tightest push on his face, closer than the opening beat, red-and-white storefront signage blurred behind | `30 bucks` — white on a green highlight box |
| 41.46s | Close-up, head turned slightly toward an interviewer off-camera left, a shop doorway behind | `a number` |
| 50.67s | Close-up, head turned further to near three-quarter, looking down and away from the lens | `everybody` |

**Not shown by the frames:** whether the camera moves inside a shot (no pan or zoom is visible across the six stills), whether there is music under the speech, and how the sentence resolves — the last sampled fragment at 50.67s is still mid-sentence. The interviewer is never in frame in any sampled beat. The post caption names the man as Ronald Davis and is itself cut off mid-sentence.

## What carries the value

His own sentence, withheld from the reader. Every caption is a two- or three-word fragment that never closes, so the pinned promise can only be paid off by staying on his face. The street cutaways — people walking past him in the rain — are the evidence sitting under the words, not a break from them.

## Shoot it

- **Camera:** one phone, handheld, at the speaker's own eye level. Two setups only: a tight close-up that fills the frame with the face, and a wider angle from across the pavement with foot traffic crossing between camera and subject. Cut between them; never move inside a shot.
- **Location:** a real street with real passers-by. The people walking past are load-bearing — do not clear the frame.
- **Light:** available daylight, overcast, no fill, no reflector. The wet grey look is part of why it reads as caught rather than made.
- **Wardrobe:** whatever the subject already wears. Nothing styled, nothing new.
- **Audio:** the subject talks to an interviewer just off-camera left, never to the lens. Record clean speech — the whole edit is built from it.
- **Edit:** transcribe the speech and cut it into 2–3 word cards, one per beat. One emotional word per run in red; one number or amount white on a green highlight box. Never let a card complete a sentence.

## Or generate it

```
vertical 9:16 handheld close-up photograph of {SUBJECT} filling the frame, head
lowered slightly, speaking to an interviewer just off-camera, worn everyday
outerwear and a knitted beanie, a city storefront blurred behind them, wet
overcast daylight, no fill light, phone-camera look, slight grain, no
retouching, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** handheld at the speaker's own eye level, drifting slightly with the operator's breathing, holding on the face without cutting away while they talk — the frames show no zoom or pan inside a shot.

**Text overlay:** header card pinned unchanged for the whole runtime — `{ACCOUNT} ✓` above one hook line, `{SUBJECT DESCRIPTOR} {DISMISSIVE LABEL}, this will change your perspective 💔`. Under it, one speech fragment per beat in the same lower-centre position, 2–3 words, white, never completing a sentence: `{fragment}` → `{fragment}` → `{fragment}`. One emotional word per run set in red inside its fragment; one number or amount set white on a green highlight box.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DUopzJWgvo0/
