# Borrowed-footage subject swap — rebuild sheet

9.17s of real UFC broadcast footage with two dogs swapped into the fighters' place, no on-screen text at all — 3,958,988 views and 236,006 likes for @candy.greyhound.

**Why it works**

The clip is not a piece of content made to be watched — it is a piece of *evidence*, borrowed whole from a live broadcast, so the cage, the referee stepping in and the arena rising to its feet all react to the swapped subject as though it were genuinely there. Nothing on screen winks at the viewer, and the only editorial is the caption written in the swapped subject's own first-person voice, which turns nine seconds of borrowed footage into a boast.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 0.73s | Cage-side broadcast shot: two dogs in the exact position of two grappling fighters on a blue mat — a white dog with dark ears wrapped from behind around a tan dog whose head is pressed to the canvas. Chain-link fence and padded cage post fill the left edge, sponsor lettering printed on the mat. | none |
| 2.2s | Same hold, tighter. A red competition glove and a green-shorted human leg sit in frame beside the dogs — the swap covers heads and upper bodies, not the limbs. | none |
| 3.67s | Tightest framing on the two dog heads locked together, the red glove up beside the trapped dog's head. The hold fills the frame. | none |
| 5.14s | The hold continues, glove pressed in at the trapped dog's head, mat sponsor lettering behind. | none |
| 6.6s | A referee in black leans into frame over the dogs and moves in on the hold — the stoppage. | none |
| 8.07s | Cut to the broadcast's own high wide shot of the arena crowd, hundreds of people on their feet. | none |

There is no on-screen text in any of the six frames. The caption, verbatim, is: *"I take everyone into deep waters 🦧"* with `#dogs #UFC #mma #martialarts`.

**What carries the value**

The swap sitting inside real, high-stakes broadcast footage that plays out uncut and unremarked. The referee's stoppage and the crowd cutaway are the payoff because they are *the source clip's own* reactions — the world in the footage treats the substituted subject as real. The caption in first person is the only line of persuasion in the whole thing.

**Shoot it**

You do not shoot this — that is the point of the format, and the reason it is cheap. What you supply is:

- **Source footage:** one piece of borrowed, high-stakes broadcast material with a clear physical outcome and a built-in crowd or official reacting to it. The reaction has to already be in the clip; do not add one.
- **The swap:** replace the subject's head and upper body only. In this video the human limbs — a red glove, shorts, a leg — stay visible and are *not* a mistake; the leftover human parts are what make the composite read as footage rather than a cartoon. From the stills alone I cannot tell whether this was done as a masked overlay or an AI video pass; the frames show the result, not the method.
- **Cut:** hold on the action for roughly the first six seconds, tightening across it, then take the source's own crowd or reaction shot as the last two seconds. Uncut inside each shot.
- **Text:** none on screen. Everything you want to say goes in the platform caption, one line, first person, in the swapped subject's voice, plus the source event's real hashtags so it lands in that community's feed.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 frame from a live sports broadcast: two {SUBJECT} in the exact position of two grappling athletes on a blue arena mat, one wrapped around the other from behind while the lower one's head is pressed to the canvas; chain-link cage wall and a padded cage post fill the left edge, {PRODUCT} printed on the mat in place of the sponsor lettering, a red competition glove and a human limb in shorts still visible in the frame beside them; hard overhead arena lighting, cool blue mat, telephoto compression, slight motion blur, broadcast video look with fine noise, no on-screen text
```

*Motion:* no camera of your own — the borrowed broadcast handheld holds cage-side on the grapple and tightens across the runtime, then cuts to the broadcast's own high wide crowd shot.

*Text overlay:* none on screen. The only words are the platform caption, first person in the swapped subject's voice — `I {boast the borrowed footage proves} {emoji}` — followed by the source event's own hashtags.

A note on the product slot: **the source video has no product in it.** The mat's sponsor lettering is the only place a brand mark appears anywhere in these frames, which is why `{PRODUCT}` is placed there. If your brand needs more presence than a mark on the floor, this format is the wrong one — adding a product beat breaks the "borrowed footage, untouched" mechanic that is doing all the work.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DcUKLi6y-Mn/
