# Split-screen mechanism verdict — rebuild sheet

A dermatologist stands cut-out in front of a held clinical close-up of flaking skin and, caption by caption, renames what you're looking at — misdiagnosis → real name → cause → what to use. 63s · 4,957,604 views · 32,312 likes.

**Why it works**

The gross close-up never leaves the screen, so every caption reclassifies something the viewer is still staring at instead of something they're being told about. The captions run as a four-step argument — *this is not what you think* → *here is its real name* → *here is the cause* → *here is what beats the cause* — and each one only pays off if you're still there for the next, which is what holds a full minute of talking head.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 5.06s | Composite frame: macro close-up of red, flaking skin along a nose crease fills the top band; presenter (navy scrubs, short beard) cut out over black below it, eyes wide, index finger raised. No real room behind him. | This is not dry skin! |
| 15.18s | Same composite, same held macro, same cutout scale — presenter mid-sentence. | *(none)* |
| 25.31s | Same composite, image still holding; caption box sits a little higher, over the top edge of the image. | Seborrheic dermatitis |
| 35.43s | Same macro behind; the cutout scales up and shifts left, head and shoulders now covering the lower-left third, both hands gesturing. | Caused in part as a reaction to a yeast that is part of the skin microbiome |
| 45.55s | The reference image swaps to a product pack shot on plain white (a dandruff shampoo bottle, label readable). Cutout scales up again and moves to the lower right, face large in the corner. | Anti-yeast treatments are great |
| 55.68s | Composite drops away entirely: straight tight talking head, same scrubs, plain warm beige wall, soft light from the upper right, chest-up at eye height. A lower-third credential graphic appears bottom right. | *(none)* |

Not visible in these frames: whether the reference image is a still or a slow-moving clip, whether the camera moves at all, what is said out loud, what the lower-third credential graphic says (it's cropped in every frame it appears), and what happens between the six sampled moments or after 55.68s.

**What carries the value**

The held clinical close-up. It's unretouched, unglamorous and stays up for four of six beats — the persuasion is that the viewer keeps looking at the symptom while the words around it change. The product only appears once, at 45.55s, as the verdict at the end of an argument that was already won. The presenter's authority (scrubs, credential graphic, "I diagnose this every day" framing in the caption) is the second load-bearing piece — this one does not work anonymous.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera:** phone, vertical 9:16, locked on a tripod at eye height, chest-up framing. It does not move. Shoot the whole monologue in one continuous take against a green screen or a plain flat wall you can key out — the cut-out layer is the whole trick.
- **The evidence layer:** one high-quality macro shot of the actual problem, framed tight and lit flat, no retouching and no styling. Get it before you write the captions — the argument has to be about *that* image. The product pack shot is a separate plain-white still, swapped in only at the verdict beat.
- **Light:** soft, single source, from one side and slightly above (the final beat shows it falling from the upper right). Even on the face, no hard shadow, no colour cast.
- **Wardrobe:** one flat colour, work uniform, no pattern, no logo, no jewellery — anything busy tears at the keyed edges and steals from the image behind. Contrast the wardrobe against the reference image so the cutout separates.
- **Editing rule:** the cut-out subject starts small and low, then scales up and shifts left, then right, as the argument narrows — three sizes across five beats. One caption on screen at a time, replaced not stacked. Drop the composite for the last beat and finish on the bare face in a real room.

**Or generate it**

```
Vertical 9:16 composite social frame, black background. Upper band: a full-width
unretouched macro photograph of {PRODUCT} — the problem or object being diagnosed —
shot close and clinical, plain even light, no styling, no retouching. Lower half:
{SUBJECT} cut out cleanly against the black, chest-up, facing camera, eyes wide and
one index finger raised into frame, plain work uniform in a single flat colour, no
logo. Phone-camera look, slight compression, no on-screen text.
```

**Motion:** both layers essentially static — the reference image holds without pan or zoom and the cut-out subject only talks and gestures in place; the only change across beats is the cutout scaling up and shifting left or right.

**Text overlay:** one caption at a time in a solid rounded rectangle, white bold sans on a muted blue box, centred in the top third, replaced at each beat —
`This is not {WRONG ASSUMPTION}!` → `{REAL NAME}` → `Caused in part by {MECHANISM}` → `{TREATMENT CLASS} are great`

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