# Locked-frame subtitled monologue — rebuild sheet

One man on a high-rise rooftop at dusk, talking straight to camera for 37 seconds in a single unchanging framing, carried by rolling speech captions and nothing else — no product, no cutaway, no graphic. By greglav, 199,439 views, 8,677 likes.

**Why it works**

The setting does the persuading before a word lands: a man alone above a whole city of lights, gold watch, gold rings, cigar, offering no evidence of anything — the frame is the proof. The captions are the retention device, because every single card is cut off mid-sentence, so there is never a clean place to leave.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2.98s | Chest-up on the man, centred, open rooftop terrace at dusk. Glass-and-metal balustrade at waist height behind him, the whole city behind that in heavy round bokeh, pale overcast sky across the top third. Dark tee, thin gold chain, gold rings, gold watch. Both hands up at chest, mid-gesture. | you need to go figure yourself out |
| 8.94s | Identical framing and background. He turns slightly, eyeline drops down-left of the lens, one hand raised palm-down at his chest. | that you need to spend |
| 14.9s | Identical framing. He leans back with one arm stretched out along the rail, head turned back to the lens. | is the generation where we can |
| 20.85s | Identical framing. Settled back against the rail, both forearms resting on it, a cigar now visible in one hand, looking off past the left edge of frame. | You have the amazing idea |
| 26.81s | Identical framing. Squared back up to the lens, mid-sentence, arms low on the rail. | to go make these dreams happen |
| 32.77s | Identical framing. Slightly right of centre, one hand raised beside his head, finger up to point the line. | become that person that you know |

The frames do not show the first 3 seconds or the last 4.5 seconds, so the opening hook and whatever closes the video are unknown — assume nothing about them. The frames also cannot tell you whether the camera is tripod-locked or held very steadily by hand; what they do prove is that the balustrade, the bokeh horizon and the sky line sit at the same height in all six, so there is no second angle, no scale change and no reframe anywhere in the sampled runtime. Whether the captions are auto-generated from his speech is not visible either, though the casing changes card to card ("you need…" then "You have…"), which is what auto-captioning usually looks like.

**What carries the value**

The frame itself. There is no product on screen, nothing demonstrated, nothing shown as proof — the rooftop, the city of lights, the watch and the cigar are the entire credential behind the claim. The captions carry the argument's words but not its authority; what they do is hold the viewer, because not one of the six cards finishes a sentence.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** One position, one framing, held for the whole runtime. Chest-up, lens at roughly the subject's chest-to-chin height, a few feet back. No zoom, no push, no reframe, no second angle, no cutaway — if you move the camera you have shot a different format.
- **Location.** An elevated outdoor position with a real city behind it, and enough distance to that city that it renders as pure bokeh. Put a rail, balustrade or ledge behind the subject at waist height so there is one hard line between them and the lights — it is what makes the height read.
- **Lens and focus.** Shoot wide open, long enough that the background is completely unresolvable. Only the subject is sharp. This is the one technical thing the format needs; a phone in portrait mode gets close, a real lens gets it properly.
- **Light.** Dusk, city lights already on, sky still pale — that window is short, so scout it and shoot fast. Ambient only, no visible key on the face. Do not light this like an interview.
- **Wardrobe.** Plain, dark, no logo, short sleeves. Everything expensive is on the hands and neck where the gesture keeps putting it in frame — watch, rings, thin chain. The tee being plain is what makes the jewellery legible.
- **Performance.** Talk continuously and gesture with the hands. Do not address the lens the whole time; look off it, lean on the rail, come back. Stillness is the camera's job, not the subject's.
- **Captions.** Burn them in centred at chest height, white bold sentence case on a black plate, same position every card, swapping roughly every 3 seconds. Break the lines mid-thought on purpose — no card should ever end on a full stop.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16, {SUBJECT} standing on an open high-rise rooftop terrace at dusk,
framed chest-up and roughly centred, talking to the lens mid-sentence with both
hands raised at chest height; plain dark short-sleeve tee, thin gold chain, gold
rings, a gold watch; a glass-and-metal balustrade running behind them at waist
height; behind that the whole city thrown completely out of focus into large
round bokeh lights, pale blue-grey overcast sky across the top third; warm
ambient city light with no visible key on the face, very shallow depth of field
so only the subject is sharp, cinematic lens look rather than a phone look, no
on-screen text; no {PRODUCT} in frame — the source video shows none at any beat
```

**Motion.** Camera holds one chest-up framing for the entire runtime — no push, no zoom, no reframe, no second angle and no cutaway; the only movement in shot is the subject gesturing and shifting his weight against the rail. Generate every beat from the same seed so the rooftop and the bokeh stay identical.

**Text overlay.** `"{clause of the spoken sentence}"` — white bold sentence-case captions, one or two lines, centred at chest height in the same position every beat, replaced with the next clause roughly every 3s. Every card is a mid-sentence fragment that never resolves.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Da3600kN677/
