# Captioned steps → comment gate — rebuild sheet

A dermatologist counts off three named drugstore products for one skin concern, each item labelled with a number over its own full-frame cutaway, with her face pinned as a small cut-out in every frame — 2,695,048 views, 50,064 likes (@dermguru).

**Why it works**
The numbered list is a finish line: once "1." appears, the viewer knows there are at least three and stays to collect them. The pinned face cut-out means the frame is free to show anything — macro pores, a countertop, a store shelf — while the recommendation never stops being a named person's recommendation, and the payoff is moved off-video into the comments ("Comment FILAMENTS and lll send you a DM"), so the video ends unfinished on purpose.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 4.94s | Full-frame extreme macro of a nose and cheek, pores and filaments plainly visible — shot far closer than a phone selfie, not her room. Her cut-out pinned low-centre, finger raised. | *its sebaceous filaments* · "These are sebaceous filaments," |
| 14.83s | Second macro, a different nose in three-quarter profile on a plain warm background. Cut-out moves lower-left, pointing at the pores. | **How to minimize ✨ sebaceous filaments ✨** · "All these are totally normal if you want to minimise their appearance." |
| 24.72s | Handheld: a hand holds a De La Cruz 10% sulphur acne treatment tube to camera, label centred, tiled floor and dark cabinet behind. | **1. Sulfur mask** · "She is an underrated queen." |
| 34.6s | Three Retin-A tubes stood on a granite counter, letterboxed with black bars top and bottom — a differently-shaped clip dropped into the vertical frame. Cut-out sits at the very top here. | **2. Retinoids** · "No. 2 retinol because there is nothing she can't do." |
| 44.49s | Handheld in a pharmacy aisle: a hand lifts an Avène Cicalfate box off a packed shelf, overhead retail light. | **3. Thiccc moisturizer** · "No. 3 Barrier Repair Cream can change the game" |
| 54.38s | Same aisle, tighter — a hand holds a Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash bottle to camera, Cetaphil below. No number here: it's a usage tip on the last item, not a fourth item. | "Let it sit for 20 to 30 seconds so it can actually get in the pores." |

Two things the frames do not show, so don't assume them: the last ~7 seconds of the 61.79s runtime (whether the comment gate appears on screen at the end is unknown — in this post it is only in the written caption), and how the numbered labels animate in.

**What carries the value**
The numbered run of real, cheap, named products held in hand. Not a transformation, not a demo — the persuasion is a short ranked list of things you could buy today, kept credible by the presenter staying visible in the corner of every frame while the footage under her changes.

**Shoot it**
- **Two layers, always.** A full-frame plate that changes every beat, and one small cut-out of the presenter pinned over it for the entire runtime. Move the cut-out around the frame so it never covers the thing being shown — in this video it sits low-centre, lower-left, then top.
- **Presenter layer:** phone at face height, plain indoor room, one flat light, same wardrobe start to finish (here: grey zip top, white headband). She talks continuously for the whole runtime; cut nothing.
- **Plate layer, in order:** two extreme macros of the problem (these are the one thing a phone struggles with — either shoot with a macro lens or source them), then one handheld shot per item, product held to camera with the label square-on and readable. Real locations only: a bathroom floor, a kitchen counter, a shop aisle with stock on the shelves behind. Available light — overhead retail light is fine and reads as honest.
- **Text:** one numbered white label box per item, same position each time, item named in three words or fewer. Burn speech captions in a small box at the bottom for the whole runtime.
- **Needs a credible on-camera person.** Not a performance — she just talks — but the format is one person's list, so the authority has to be real. This is the one part you cannot fake or generate around.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 handheld phone photograph inside a pharmacy skincare aisle, a hand
lifting {PRODUCT} off a packed shelf and holding it toward camera at chest height,
label square-on and readable, rows of boxed skincare and shelf tickets filling the
background slightly out of focus, flat overhead retail lighting, no styling, slight
motion softness, phone-camera look, no on-screen text; the small pinned cut-out of
{SUBJECT} is composited afterwards, not generated in this plate
```

*Motion:* handheld, held roughly still at arm's length with natural hand drift as the product is lifted forward into the light — no zoom, no cut inside the shot.

*Text overlay pattern:* beat 1 `"{PROBLEM}"` small and italic over the macro → beat 2 title `How to {VERB} ✨ {PROBLEM} ✨` in a coloured bold box → then one label per item in a white rounded box, same position every time: `1. {ITEM}`, `2. {ITEM}`, `3. {ITEM}` → speech captions running in a small bottom box throughout.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DTvA_6yDmTP/
