# Character sketch — rebuild sheet

A 55s period sketch shot entirely inside a vintage car: a costumed lead in the front seat performs while a back-seat ensemble of kids reacts. By druski — 38,430,684 views, 4,171,453 likes.

**Why it works** — The location is one cramped car, so the lead and the people reacting to him are in the same frame at the same time, and every reaction lands as proof the bit is working. The costume and the era do the setup for free: you know who these people are within a second, so no time is spent explaining anything.

## The beats

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 4.43s | Handheld at seat height. Lead fills the right of frame in three-quarter profile — afro, moustache, tan wide-lapel blazer over a pink windowpane check shirt — mouth open mid-line. Two kids visible on the back bench over his shoulder, one turned toward him. | none |
| 13.29s | Camera swung to the back seat: three kids across the bench (orange polo, striped smock mid-line, striped shirt), grey vinyl seat back across the bottom, green through the rear window. The lead's jacket sleeve intrudes bottom-right. | none |
| 22.15s | Very tight on the lead, camera low, looking up at him. Chin lifted, eyes cut to the side, mouth open. Jacket shoulder and collar fill the lower half, car ceiling the top. | none |
| 31.01s | Wider on the back of the car, mid-pan so the frame is motion-blurred. Boy in a blue-and-white striped tee foreground left, boy in an orange polo laughing across the bench. A suburban house and lawn through the side windows. | none |
| 39.87s | Back on the lead, close, right of frame, eyes down, mouth open. Over his shoulder in the left third, one kid mid-line too. | none |
| 48.73s | Whipped back to the cast, heavy blur across the whole frame. Three kids, the middle one laughing, the lead's tan jacket sweeping into the bottom-right. | none |

There is no on-screen text in any of the six frames. The caption carries the label instead, verbatim: `BEHIND THE SCENES 🎬😂😂😂😂😂😭😭😭😭 #JOEJACKSON`.

**What carries the value** — The bit: one lead performing a recognisable character in costume while a matching ensemble reacts inside the same cramped frame. The reactions are what turn a monologue into a scene. No product appears anywhere in the six frames — if a rebuild needs one, it has to be put into the world deliberately.

## Shoot it

- **Camera** — a phone held by someone sitting in the car, roughly at seat height, arm's length from the lead. Hold on the lead while he delivers, then whip round to the back bench and back again. Two of the six frames are heavily motion-blurred, which means the pan is fast and the blur is kept, not hidden. The stills can't tell you whether these are true whip-pans in one take or cuts — either reads the same on screen, so shoot it as whips and cut only if you have to.
- **Light** — all daylight through the car windows, nothing added. Faces are exposed so the headliner goes near-white and the windows blow out. No reflector, no lamp, no colour.
- **Location** — a car with a big period interior: cream headliner, grey vinyl bench seats, wide windows. Parked or moving both work; the frames don't show enough to tell whether the car is driving. What matters is that greenery and a house are visible outside, so the world reads as suburban daylight.
- **Wardrobe rules** — everyone is inside one era, head to toe, no exceptions. The lead is dressed a level above the cast (tan wide-lapel blazer, patterned button-up); the kids are in cheap, bright knits (orange polo, striped smock, striped tee). Hair matches the era across the whole cast — that consistency is doing as much work as the clothes.
- **Cast** — one performer who can carry dialogue in character, plus three or four people who only have to react. This is the one format on the shelf that does not work without a performer.

## Or generate it

The single most important beat is 4.43s — the lead and the reacting cast in one frame.

```
vertical 9:16 film still, interior of a 1970s sedan shot from the front passenger seat at seat height, {SUBJECT} in the right half of frame in three-quarter profile — large afro, moustache, tan wide-lapel blazer with contrast topstitching over a pink windowpane check shirt — mouth open mid-sentence, three young cast members on the grey vinyl back bench behind and over the shoulder in period knits (orange polo, striped smock, blue-and-white striped tee) with matching afros, cream headliner across the top of frame, flat daylight through the rear and side windows with green suburban lawn and a house outside, {PRODUCT} placed in the world beside the lead only if the rebuild calls for it (no product appears in the source frames), phone-camera look, slight motion softness, no on-screen text
```

**Motion** — handheld from the passenger seat: hold on the lead as he delivers, then a fast whip back to the bench and a whip forward again, keeping the smear of the pan rather than cutting. Generate every beat from the same seed so the car and the faces stay identical across the six.

**Text overlay** — none. This format runs with zero on-screen text; the caption does the labelling: `{ALL-CAPS SCENE LABEL} {emoji run} #{CHARACTER}`.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Dad7k_Ni5sg/
