# Character sketch — rebuild sheet

A church skit: a costumed pastor delivers three escalating, outrageous lines from the front of the sanctuary while a young man in the pew reacts — 36.8s, 1,887,600 views, 123,736 likes, by joshashakespeare. Caption: "That's a pastor btw…."

**Why it works**

The persuasion is a straight face: the lead never winks, so each line lands as if it were an ordinary sermon, and the escalation buys the next eight seconds. The reaction cutaways do the laughing for the viewer — the congregant going from flat scepticism to fully breaking is permission to stay and see how far it goes.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 2.95s | Lead in character, mid-shot: older man, grey hair and moustache, wire glasses, cream suit with gold lapel pin, lapel mic. Gold-framed religious mural behind him. Hand raised low, mid-sentence. | THE JEWS AIN'T HALF AS BAD AS THE NIGGAS I GOT TO DEAL WITH NOW |
| 8.84s | Reverse: young man in a pew, navy polo, open Bible in his lap, head turned off-camera, flat sceptical look. Congregants behind him. | — |
| 14.73s | Lead full-body from a second position, arm thrown out, dark marble pulpit wall and a lectern edge behind him. | HOW ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE A BLACK PRESIDENT COMING OUT OF A WHITE WOMAN? |
| 20.62s | Tighter on the lead, chest-up, mouth open mid-delivery, mural behind him again. | THE NIGGAS MAMA IS WHITE. |
| 26.51s | Back to the pew: eyes squeezed shut, face screwed up, hand flat on the Bible, holding it in. | — |
| 32.4s | Same pew, tighter: he twists toward the aisle, mouth wide open, breaking completely. | — |

Text is a burned-in subtitle of the spoken line, and only ever on the lead's shots. The reaction shots are silent-looking by design.

**What carries the value**

The escalating dialogue delivered deadpan in costume — each line worse than the last — with the reaction cutaway certifying it. Not the room, not the wardrobe, not a product. If the lines don't escalate, there is no video.

**Not visible in the frames** — say so rather than guess: whether one performer plays both roles (the pastor is aged and the congregant is not; the stills can't settle it); whether the camera moves inside any shot, or the audio, music and dialogue between the captioned lines. The frames show three camera positions on the lead and one on the reactor.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** Phone, vertical, two setups only. Setup A: standing eye height on the lead, chest-up, with a strong flat wall behind him (the mural here) so he reads as the authority. Setup B: seated height on the reactor in a pew with two or three people visible behind. Cut A-B-A-A-B-B. Reuse the same two framings all runtime; the third lead angle (full body at the pulpit) is optional variety, not required.
- **Light.** Whatever the room already gives you — bright, even, overhead interior light. No lamps, no fill, no colour. The flatness is what makes it read as documentary rather than a sketch.
- **Wardrobe.** Lead: over-dressed and immaculate — light suit, tie, lapel pin, clip-on mic, glasses. The costume is the whole premise, so it has to be one notch too formal. Reactor and the people behind: plain, muted, unstyled — polo, neutral tops, nothing that competes.
- **Performance rules.** Lead never smiles and never speeds up. Reactor never speaks, and only escalates: flat → wincing → breaking, in that order. Three lines maximum; put the worst one last and the shortest one last.
- **Text.** Subtitle the lead's lines verbatim, all caps, centre-bottom, thin white with a soft outline. Nothing on the reaction shots.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 film still, {SUBJECT} in character as an older preacher — grey hair and moustache, wire glasses, cream three-piece suit with a gold lapel pin, white shirt, patterned tie, clip-on lapel mic — standing mid-sentence at the front of a real church sanctuary, one hand raised low, a large gold-framed religious mural filling the wall behind, wooden pews and a lectern edge at the frame edges, {PRODUCT} sitting naturally in the world of the scene, bright even indoor sanctuary light, chest-up mid-shot at standing eye height, phone-camera look, no on-screen text
```

*Motion:* handheld shot-reverse between the standing lead and the seated reactor, small push in on the lead for each escalated line, the same two setups reused all runtime.

*Text overlay:* burned-in subtitles of the spoken line, only on the lead's shots — all caps, centre-bottom, thin white with a soft outline, one line per beat, escalating: `"{SPOKEN LINE}"` → `"{WORSE LINE}"` → `"{WORST LINE}"`. Reaction shots carry no text.

Generate both characters from a locked seed so the face and suit hold across all three lead beats — a wardrobe or age shift between beats kills the deadpan.

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