# Hook, mechanism, gate demo — rebuild sheet

A 9.7-second wordless home demo of a light-and-heat foot device, carried by three caption acts and closed on a comment gate — 182,504 views, 3,751 likes, posted by aurestep_.

**Why it works**

The picture never argues and the caption never demonstrates, so the two halves stay out of each other's way: you watch a device glowing on someone's feet in a real living room while one flat line tells you what the glow is doing. Because the middle claim is pinned unchanged across three different angles of the same thing working, each new angle reads as another look at the same evidence rather than a new pitch, and the gate only arrives once the thing has already been seen working.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 0.78s | Looking down at a wood table — the closed white box, printed with the product, stone counter and a small plant behind. No hands yet. | Send this to someone with plantar fasciitis 😬🦶 |
| 2.33s | A hand holds one slipper up to the lens, sole to camera: red LEDs lit in the footbed, black panel reading 30 °C. Dim living room, TV behind, second unit glowing below. | Send this to someone with plantar fasciitis 😬🦶 |
| 3.88s | POV straight down at the wearer's own feet on grey carpet, both slippers on, red light along the sole edge spilling onto the carpet. | Heat + red light improves circulation & relaxes muscles 🔥😮‍💨 |
| 5.43s | Floor-level beside a leaning full-length mirror on a cream shag rug — the slippers and their reflection, glow doubled, readout showing 30. | Heat + red light improves circulation & relaxes muscles 🔥😮‍💨 |
| 6.98s | Lower legs and feet in the mirror, standing in both slippers, the red strip bright along each sole against a dark floor. | Heat + red light improves circulation & relaxes muscles 🔥😮‍💨 |
| 8.54s | Wide living room — a woman on a beige sectional, feet up on an ottoman in the slippers, lit candle, lamp and art behind. | Comment "plantar" for the link 😊 |

Three acts, not six captions: the hook line holds for two beats, the mechanism line holds unchanged for three, the gate replaces it once at the end. Nothing is ever spelled out per beat.

**What carries the value**

The visible light. The device is the only lit thing in a dim home — glowing on the feet, pooling on the carpet, doubled in the mirror, with a temperature number sitting right beside it. The mechanism named in the middle caption is something the viewer watches running, not something they are told, which is why the video can get away with never showing a result.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera:** phone, vertical, handheld throughout. Six separate setups, no camera moves inside a shot, hard cuts between them: (1) looking down at the boxed product on a table, (2) the unit held up to the lens with its working face turned to camera, (3) POV down at your own feet wearing it, (4) a floor-level angle beside a leaning mirror, (5) tight on the feet in the mirror, (6) one wide of the room with someone using it normally.
- **Light:** dim. The product's own light has to be the brightest thing in five of six frames — shoot at night or with the blinds down, one warm lamp out of frame. Only the opening table shot is in daylight.
- **Wardrobe / talent:** no face performance and no dialogue anywhere. Four of six frames are hands and feet only. The one person who appears is sitting still in plain neutral loungewear in the final wide, not addressing camera. Real lived-in room, mildly tidied, not styled.
- **Text:** two lines maximum, centred in the upper third, plain white with a soft shadow, casual sentence case, one or two emoji. Change it twice and only twice.

Not visible in the frames, so don't assume it: whether there is any voiceover or music (the stills can't say), whether the feet in beats 3–5 belong to the woman in beat 6, and whether the device is actually heating — the only heat evidence is the number on its own display. The two trailing emoji in each caption are small on screen; the words are exact, the emoji glyphs are a best read.

**Or generate it**

The beat worth generating is the POV on the feet — it's the one doing the persuading.

```
vertical 9:16 POV photograph looking straight down from the wearer's own eyeline at
{SUBJECT}'s feet on plain grey low-pile carpet, {SUBJECT} wearing {PRODUCT}, the
product's own light glowing along its edge and spilling a coloured pool onto the
carpet around the foot, its small digital readout facing up, dim evening room with
one warm lamp out of frame, phone-camera look, slight grain, no retouching, no face
in frame, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** handheld POV held at the wearer's own eyeline with a small natural sway as they shift weight, no zoom and no cut, the product's glow left as the brightest thing in frame.

**Text overlay pattern:**

- Beats 1–2: `Send this to someone with {problem}` + emoji, pinned unchanged
- Middle beats: `{mechanism} improves {benefit} & {second benefit}` + emoji, pinned unchanged across every demo beat
- Final beat only: `Comment "{WORD}" for the link` + emoji

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DaVut2Ngelh/
