# Subtitled monologue with evidence cutaways — rebuild sheet

A 69-second front-camera monologue about thinning hairlines that opens on two borrowed clips of other people's hairlines before the creator ever appears, then applies the product to his own scalp on camera. 85,986 views · 519 likes · posted by shopkovari, gated on "Comment 'LINK' for the link."

**Why it works**
The borrowed opening buys the first fifteen seconds with someone else's evidence — a macro of a thinning hairline, then a stranger touching his own — so the viewer has already agreed the problem is real before a seller appears. When the creator does appear he is the demo surface, not the pitchman: he tips his own head into the lens and puts the product on his own hairline, and the running speech subtitles never complete a sentence, so there is never a clean place to leave.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 5.52s | Extreme close-up of a thinning, patchy hairline filling the frame — dark curly hair pushed back, bare scalp at the temple. Panel edges and a thumb at the left of frame; not the creator. | THAT SHIT WAS |
| 16.57s | A different man — tattooed, white tank top, gold chains — in a dark room lit red by ceiling pendants, hand raised to his own hairline, mid-speech. Second borrowed source. | DEAD ASS NATURAL |
| 27.62s | The creator arrives: glasses, plain white tee, chest-up on a front camera, plain off-white wall behind, talking straight to the lens, hand rising into frame. | NIGHTS |
| 38.67s | Same creator, camera lower and tighter — shower-curtain rail and door frame behind him now, so the room reads as his bathroom. Still to the lens, no cutaway. | YOUR DRUM ROLLER |
| 49.72s | Tighter, head tipped forward to expose the front of his own hairline; a small white bottle with a blue cap held inverted against the top of his head — the product going on. | PERSONALLY LIKE TO |
| 60.76s | Framing pulled back slightly — ceiling vent and doorway behind — still talking, a white product held at the bottom edge of frame. | AND IT'S ALL |

Text behaviour throughout: burned-in auto-caption-style speech subtitles, all caps, small, same centre-frame position every beat, one word of each clause highlighted yellow. Nothing is ever pinned and no clause finishes a sentence.

What the frames do not show, said plainly:
- Whether the first beat is a phone screen being filmed, a screen recording, or just a very tight macro. The bright panel edges and the thumb suggest a screen; the still does not settle it.
- The middle word at 38.67s renders as **DRUM** in the still. At this resolution it could be a shorter word; it has not been confirmed, so it is transcribed exactly as it reads and nothing has been substituted for it.
- What is in his hand at 60.76s — a white object, too small in frame to identify as the same bottle from 49.72s or a second item.
- Whether more borrowed cutaways appear between the sampled beats. Six stills across 69 seconds only prove the two at the head.
- What is said. There is no audio here — only the subtitle fragments above.

**What carries the value**
Bare, unretouched hairlines. The borrowed macro that opens the video, then his own exposed scalp under the applicator at 49.72s. The subtitle track holds the viewer, but the scalps are the argument: the person recommending it is showing you his own problem area, unretouched, in a bathroom.

**Shoot it**
- **Camera:** phone front camera at arm's length, or propped on a shelf at chest height. Fixed — no gimbal, no push, no zoom. Reframe only by moving yourself between beats; the small angle changes across 27.62s / 38.67s / 60.76s are body movement, not camera work.
- **Location:** the operator's own bathroom or a plain room. Nothing styled. The shower rail and ceiling vent visibly in shot are part of why it reads as real — do not dress them out.
- **Light:** flat overhead indoor light. No ring light, no window setup, no colour. The borrowed opening clips can be lit however they came.
- **Wardrobe:** plain white t-shirt, whatever the operator actually wears. No brand, no styling.
- **Non-negotiable:** the operator applies the product to their own body, on camera, with the problem area exposed and unretouched. That beat is the format. It needs a real person willing to show their own before-state and talk for a minute — this one is **not** replicable without a person on camera.
- **The open:** two clips of other people's version of the same problem, before you appear. Different people, different rooms, different light from yours and from each other — the mismatch is what makes them read as evidence rather than as your footage.
- **Captions:** auto-generate speech subtitles, then set them to one short clause per beat, all caps, centre frame, same position every time, one word per clause coloured yellow. Never write a headline.
- **The gate lives in the post caption, not on screen** — "Comment 'LINK' for the link" — so nothing on the video ever asks for anything.

**Or generate it**

The single most important beat is 49.72s — the self-application.

```
vertical 9:16, {SUBJECT} in a plain white t-shirt and black rectangular glasses,
chest-up on a fixed front camera at arm's length in their own small bathroom —
curved shower-curtain rail and a door frame just visible behind, plain off-white
walls — head tipped forward toward the lens to expose the front of their own
hairline, one hand holding {PRODUCT} inverted against the top of the head
mid-application, flat even indoor ceiling light, phone front-camera look, slight
grain, no retouching of the scalp or skin, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** camera fixed at arm's length and unmoving, the subject holding the frame themselves; only the head tipping toward the lens and the hand bringing {PRODUCT} to the hairline move.

**Text overlay:** burned-in speech subtitles — one 2–4 word clause of continuous speech per beat, all caps, same centre-frame position every beat, white with `{HIGHLIGHT_WORD}` of each clause in yellow: `{HIGHLIGHT_WORD} {WORD} {WORD}`. No pinned headline, no labels, and no clause ever completes a sentence on its own.

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