# Wordless POV procedure — rebuild sheet

A barber pressing pore plugs out of a reclined client's nose, shot in extreme macro, no text and no talking for the full 17.32s — 4,799,808 views, 5,646 likes, by cuma_barbers. The caption is empty; nothing on screen ever explains what you're watching.

**Why it works**

The camera commits to one square inch of skin and stays there, so the only thing that changes across the runtime is how much gunk has come out — the accumulation *is* the story, and there's no sentence, claim or face to argue with. Because nothing is said, there's nothing to disbelieve; the viewer stays to see how much more comes out, and the wide pull-back at the end quietly reveals it happened in a real busy shop, not a set.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 1.39s | Side view from above head height — bearded man reclined in a barber chair in a black cape, wet hair, eyes closed. A hand in a black fabric finger-cot with a neon-yellow band presses the side of his nose. Salon floor and a patterned shirt behind, warm light with a pink streak. | none |
| 4.16s | Cut to extreme macro on the side of the nose, camera above the work, finger-cot entering from the right. First pale plugs visible along the nose crease. | none |
| 6.93s | Same framing. Finger-cot presses harder while a second fingertip pulls the skin taut from above. More plugs on the surface; eyelashes and beard hairs sharp. | none |
| 9.7s | Same framing, working across the nose tip. Debris still sitting on the skin, the pressed area reddened. | none |
| 12.47s | The money shot — a full row of pale yellow-white plugs standing off the pores, black finger-cot and neon band filling the right of frame. | none |
| 15.24s | Pull back to a wide of the whole shop: checkerboard ceiling, neon scissors sign, plants, other barbers and clients working behind. Same client front-right, barber still on the nose. | none |

**What carries the value**

The extruded plugs. Pale strands standing off the pores, accumulating on one small patch of skin, held in macro for four of the six beats. No claim, no voice, no caption — the debris is the entire argument.

**Where the frames don't tell us**

- Whether the four macro beats are one continuous take or separate cuts — the framing is near-identical, so it could be either. Shoot it as one take and you're safe.
- Whether there's voiceover, music or only room sound. The stills can't say.
- What the tool actually is beyond a black fabric finger-cot with a neon-yellow band. It isn't presented as a product and no label is ever shown.
- Whether the opening and closing wides are from the same take as the macros. Same room, same client, same cape — but that's an inference, not something the frames prove.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** Phone, vertical. Open wide from roughly standing height beside the chair so the subject and the room read. Then get the lens as close as it will focus on the work — hand-held, right over the operator's hands, so their fingers enter frame from the edge. Hold that framing and do not re-frame between beats; let the drift and refocus be visible. Close by walking the phone back to a wide of the room.
- **Light.** Whatever's already in the room, overhead and warm. Do not add a light. The background wants to blow out and go soft — that's what makes the macro read.
- **Wardrobe.** Subject in a plain black cape or plain dark clothing, nothing patterned near the face. Operator: hands only, no watch, no sleeve in frame. The one colour accent in the whole video is the neon band on the finger-cot — keep an equivalent bright detail on the tool so the eye tracks it.
- **Rules.** No text. No talking. No cutaway to a face. Do not clean up between beats — the debris staying on the skin is the whole point. End on the wide so the room does the credibility work.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 extreme macro photograph of {SUBJECT}'s nose and closed eye, head tipped back, individual eyelashes and beard hairs sharp, skin shiny under warm indoor light, a hand holding {PRODUCT} pressed against the side of the nose from the right of frame while a second fingertip pulls the skin taut from above, pale extruded debris standing off the pores along the nose crease, background blown out and out of focus, phone-camera look, slight grain, no retouching of the skin, no on-screen text
```

*Motion:* handheld macro held on the one spot, tiny breathing drift and refocus only — the camera never leaves the patch of skin while the hands work.

*Text overlay:* none. The source runs its full 17s with no on-screen text and an empty caption, and the silence is part of the format. If a brand has to have one, keep it to a single small fixed line — `{PROBLEM} → {RESULT}` — that never changes, so it can't compete with the macro.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DULoH-sDbEY/
