# Personified mechanism explainer — rebuild sheet

A 39.5s macro hygiene video from realhealthschool: a cartoon germ is composited onto real skin behind an ear and under a finger ring, then brushed off — 240,803 views, 1,052 likes, caption "Check the bacteria behind your ear #health".

**Why it works**

The problem is given a face, so an invisible claim becomes a character the viewer can see hiding in a specific crease of their own body. One beat later the same spot is wiped with a white cloth and real grime comes off it — the cartoon makes the accusation, the live footage proves it, and the viewer checks themselves before the video ends.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 3.16s | Extreme macro on an earlobe and the crease behind it, fabric collar soft below. A yellow-brown googly-eyed cartoon creature sits on the skin in the crease. | HIDDEN |
| 9.48s | Same area, slightly wider. A bare hand wipes behind the lobe with a folded white cloth; a dark smudge is already on the cloth edge. No creature. | ANYWHERE |
| 15.8s | Macro of a white terry towel pinched against skin, a clump of dark debris caught in the pile. | DRY |
| 22.11s | Extreme macro straight into a finger wearing a plain silver band, white background. A grey-green wide-eyed creature hides behind the ring. | RING |
| 28.43s | Identical framing, ring removed — a small grey-green crusted lump where the band sat. | I'M |
| 34.75s | Macro of a white-bristled brush pressed against the finger, dark specks scattering, an angry dark creature shoved out of frame by the bristles. | USE |

What the frames do not show, and I have not guessed at: the stills cannot prove there is a voiceover, though single words appearing one per beat almost always means burned-in narration; the words do not read as a sentence at these six sampling points, so the full line is unknown; the body area at 15.8s is unidentifiable from the towel and fingertip alone; nothing in any sampled frame names or shows a brand or a product — the brush at 34.75s is the only tool that could be one; and these are 6 stills across 39.49s, so the roughly 5 unseen beats between each pair are not accounted for.

**What carries the value**

The mechanism wearing a face — a germ caught hiding in the two places nobody washes, the crease behind the ear and under a ring — with real dark grime lifting onto a white cloth one beat later as the corroboration. Neither half works alone: the cartoon is only a claim, the grime is only a smudge.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** Phone in macro mode, as close as it will focus. One locked or barely-breathing framing per beat, and a completely different site each beat — do not pan between them, cut. Frame the site so there is clean, empty skin next to it: that empty area is where the creature gets composited, and without it there is nowhere to put one.
- **Sites.** Pick body spots people genuinely skip, not the ones they already scrub. This video uses the crease behind the earlobe and the skin under a ring; each site gets a "creature there" beat and then a "wiped with white cloth" beat.
- **Light.** Soft, even, frontal — a window or a diffused lamp. No hard shadows in the crease, or you cannot tell shadow from grime, and the composited creature will not sit believably in the plate.
- **Wardrobe and dressing.** Nothing on screen but skin, one plain metal band, white cloth, white towel, white-bristled brush. Everything non-skin is white so the debris reads. No jewellery beyond the one ring, no nail polish, no patterned collar.
- **The proof beat is real.** Actually wipe an unwashed site with a clean white cloth and shoot what comes off. Do not stage the smudge — the whole structure rests on that one shot being true.
- **No face, no performer.** Nothing above the earlobe is ever in frame, so anyone's hands and ear will do.
- **Text.** One word per beat, no more. Bold white all-caps, centred low, heavy dark outline so it survives on skin tones.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 extreme close-up macro photograph of the side of {SUBJECT}'s head, the
earlobe and the skin crease behind it filling the frame, a soft fabric collar out of
focus at the bottom edge, soft even indoor light, shallow depth of field, phone-camera
macro look, slight grain, no retouching of the skin, no on-screen text — a small rounded
3D cartoon creature with two googly eyes and an open mouth composited onto the skin in
the crease, matched to the same light and grain as the plate; {PRODUCT} is not in frame
at this beat
```

Motion: camera holds the macro framing with only faint handheld breathing, no push and no reframe — the creature sits still on the skin and the plate underneath does not move.

Text overlay: one bold white all-caps word per beat, centred low with a heavy dark outline, taken from a continuous narration and never more than one word on screen: `{WORD}` — no beat ever carries a complete sentence.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DcHG8M4q5Tr/
