# Day-count self-test — rebuild sheet

A 22.5s front-camera selfie: one person puts a U-shaped electric toothbrush in their own mouth and holds it there for the whole runtime under a single unchanging line, "Day 6 teeth brushing in 30 sec", then cuts to the store page. By white.smile20 — **4,678,792 views · 69,087 likes**.

**Why it works**

The day number does the persuading: "Day 6" tells you this is the sixth entry in a trial you missed the start of, so the footage plays as a report rather than an ad, and nobody films day six of something that didn't work. The line never changes, so there is nothing to read and re-read except the promise, while the foam building in the mouth across the beats is the evidence underneath it.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1.8s | Selfie framing, chest-up, real living room — ceiling fixture above, hallway behind. Wide open smile showing teeth, the blue U-shaped mouthpiece held up in front of the open mouth, base toward the lens. | Day 6 teeth brushing in 30 sec |
| 5.4s | Same framing and room. Mouthpiece now in the mouth, one hand on the blue base, lips closed around it, eyes on the lens. | Day 6 teeth brushing in 30 sec |
| 9.01s | Extreme close-up — camera pushed right into the mouth. Lips, teeth and the mouthpiece fill the frame; white foam visible across the teeth. | Day 6 teeth brushing in 30 sec |
| 12.61s | Back out to the selfie framing, brush still in, foam at the lips, looking into the lens. Red pendant lamp and furniture now visible behind. | Day 6 teeth brushing in 30 sec |
| 16.21s | Same framing, more foam, eyebrows raised at the lens — the only performance beat in the video. | Day 6 teeth brushing in 30 sec |
| 19.82s | Hard cut off the face to a phone screen showing the storefront product page: site header, shipping/discount banner, the product on its black charging base, title and price. | yoursmilesecret.com · Free Worldwide Shipping • 50% Off Today · 360 Electric Toothbrush · $45.00 |

**What carries the value**

The day number in the pinned line. Everything else in the video is ordinary — one person, one room, one product in their mouth — and "Day 6" is the only thing converting it into a running trial with a history behind it. The foam is the corroboration; the number is the claim.

**What the frames do not show**

- Whether there is speech, voiceover or music — the stills carry no audio evidence, and no captions or subtitles appear.
- Any before/after of the teeth. There is no comparison shot; the only visible change across the runtime is foam.
- Whether the final beat is a still screenshot or a scrolling screen recording.
- Whether cuts happen between the selfie beats. The framing and room are consistent, so it reads as one take with a push-in, but the six stills cannot rule out cuts.
- Any result claim beyond the pinned line and the caption ("The U-shaped electric toothbrush cleans your teeth in 30 seconds").

**Shoot it**

- **Camera:** phone front camera, held at arm's length, slightly above eye level, vertical. Subject fills the frame chest-up. One move only, at the mid-point: push the phone right in to the mouth for a few seconds, then back out to the same distance. No tripod, no other cuts.
- **Light:** whatever the room has. Overhead ceiling light plus daylight from the hallway is exactly what the original uses — flat, slightly uneven, no ring light, no colour grading.
- **Room:** a real lived-in interior with depth behind the subject — a doorway, a hallway, a lamp. Do not clear or style it. The background clutter is what makes it read as day six and not a shoot.
- **Wardrobe:** plain and unstyled, or none visible (the original is bare-shouldered, framed from the chest). No jewellery, no makeup pass, no styling.
- **Performance:** none required. Smile, put the product in, hold it, raise the eyebrows once at the lens. Anyone can do this on their own phone in one take.
- **Text:** one line, top third, white sans-serif with a soft shadow. Set it once and never touch it — same words, same position, first frame to last.
- **Ending:** cut off the face to the product page on a phone screen, showing price and the offer banner. That cut is the whole call to action; there is no spoken one in the frames.

**Or generate it**

Image prompt for the hook beat (1.8s) — the one that has to be right:

```
vertical 9:16 front-facing phone selfie, {SUBJECT} framed chest-up and filling
the frame in a real lived-in living room, plain unstyled clothing or bare
shoulders, holding {PRODUCT} up at mouth height directly in front of a wide
open smile, ceiling light fixture above and a hallway with a doorway visible
behind, flat overhead indoor light mixed with daylight from the room,
arm's-length selfie distance slightly above eye level, phone front-camera
look, soft focus, mild grain, no retouching, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** handheld arm's-length selfie hold with small natural sway; the only camera move in the whole video is one push in to an extreme close-up of the mouth at the mid-point, then back out to the same framing.

**Text overlay pattern:** `Day {n} {activity} in {duration}` — one line, top third, white sans-serif with a soft drop shadow, identical words and position throughout, dropped only for the final store-page cut.

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