# Running caption over borrowed cutaways — rebuild sheet

A reviewer's face sits pinned in the corner for all 29.5 seconds while brand-shot footage of a completely different person plays behind him and one narration runs underneath in clause fragments. 759,717 views · 2,803 likes · by cpapreviews.

**Why it works**

The caption is never a finished sentence — every card is cut off mid-clause, so there is no clean place to stop watching, and the viewer reads their way to the end. The pinned face is what licenses the borrowed material: the brand's own polished footage would read as an ad on its own, but with one ordinary person never leaving the frame, all of it reads as his testimony.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2.36s | Warm close-up of an older woman with long silver hair pressing a dark curved device up under her chin — produced footage, not phone-shot. Reviewer's chest-up cut-out pinned lower left; flat purple brand wordmark lower right. | Zeus has changed my life. |
| 7.09s | Same woman holds the device up beside her face, underside to the lens. Cut-out and wordmark identical. | It's clinically proven technology |
| 11.81s | Cuts to a dark open product case on bedding, contents in a moulded tray. The reviewer is now larger and holding the device in both hands in his own room. | and works by stimulating the tongue muscles. |
| 16.54s | A pale pouch fills the upper frame — line drawing of the device, a "30 hydrogel pads" badge. The reviewer holds the device up under his own chin. | including one month supply of hydrogel pads. |
| 21.26s | Upper frame is dark and out of focus — packaging or the case again. **The stills do not show this clearly enough to call it.** The reviewer looks into the lens, same framing. | so if it doesn't work for you |
| 25.99s | Extreme close-up of a woman's chin and jaw on a pillow, device fitted under her chin, warm low light. The reviewer holds a branded pouch up in his panel. | I enjoy quiet, silent, snore free nights |

Two things the frames don't settle, and I'm not going to guess them: whether there is any beat where the reviewer goes full-frame (all six sampled beats keep him in the panel), and whether the narration is his own voice or a read — the caption style is continuous spoken subtitle, which points at a voice track, but a contact sheet can't prove it.

**What carries the value**

The unbroken clause-by-clause narration, always cut off mid-sentence, with the reviewer's face on screen for every single beat. That is what turns supplier footage of a stranger into one person's continuous account. The sequence the clauses run is doing real work too — claim → credential → mechanism → what's in the box → risk reversal → result — and it never pauses to make an argument.

**Shoot it**

- **The panel.** One person, chest-up, sat in their own room, looking straight into the lens. Shoot it once, in one unbroken take, and cut it out or crop it into the lower third. It must be in the identical spot in every beat — nail the framing first and never touch the camera again.
- **Camera.** Phone on a shelf or a small tripod at chest height, arm's length. Zero movement. Everything else in the video is footage you did not shoot, dropped in behind.
- **Light.** Flat, even, indoor — a window or a lamp in front of them, nothing dramatic. The panel should look ordinary. The footage behind it can be as polished as the brand's own; the gap between the two is part of why it reads as honest.
- **Wardrobe.** Plain t-shirt, cap, no branding on the person. Nothing that competes with the product or looks styled for camera.
- **Text.** Write the narration as one continuous paragraph first, then chop it into clauses. Every card must break mid-sentence — if a card ends on a full stop, join it to the next one.
- **Footage behind.** Brand-supplied clips, packaging held to a lens, the product in use on someone else. Cut hard on each clause. It doesn't need to match the panel in look or in person — it isn't supposed to.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 composite, no on-screen text. Behind: a full-bleed warm close-up of a
person who is not {SUBJECT}, unstyled and older, in a real bedroom, holding {PRODUCT}
against their own body exactly as the brand's own footage shows it being used, soft
window light from one side, shallow depth, produced but not glossy. Pinned over the
lower third: a chest-up cut-out of {SUBJECT} in a plain cap and plain t-shirt, looking
straight into the lens from their own room under flat even indoor light, identical
framing and identical position in every beat. A flat brand wordmark set large in the
lower right, partly hidden behind the cut-out.
```

**Motion:** the pinned {SUBJECT} cut-out is absolutely static and generated from the same seed at every beat; only the footage behind it changes, cut hard on each new caption clause, with no camera move of its own.

**Text overlay:** one clause per beat, centred, white bold sans with a soft drop shadow, each card cut off mid-sentence —
"{PRODUCT} has changed my life." → "It's {credential}" → "and works by {mechanism}" → "including {what's in the box}" → "so if it doesn't work for you" → "I enjoy {result}"

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DSy7h9nj7a7/
