# Character sketch — rebuild sheet

A 2m20s comedy sketch: one performer plays a single heightened persona — "How Conservative Women in America act" — across four settings, with a cast reacting around them and no on-screen text anywhere. 74,645,008 views · 7,234,772 likes · 139.92s · @druski.

**Why it works.** The costume and the props do the satire before anyone speaks — a blonde wig, a white power suit, a gold cross, a pink hoodie, a tiny white dog, an armed detail and a flag are each a recognition trigger, so the viewer is already in on it by the first frame. Changing the setting while keeping the character identical turns one joke into a survey of a type, and each new room resets attention without ever restarting the premise.

## The beats

The six rows below are stills sampled evenly across the runtime, **not cut points** — the frames cannot tell you how many shots the video actually has, and it is certainly far more than six.

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 11.19s | Wide under a white peaked marquee canopy, dark room. Two cold-spark fountains fire up both sides of frame. The lead — long blonde wig, heavy glam makeup, white blazer and trousers over a black top — walks toward camera, arm raised. American flag on the wall, wooden lectern at frame right. | none |
| 33.58s | Car interior, camera at windscreen height on the passenger side. Same lead, pink hoodie, gold cross necklace, gold bracelet, mouth wide open mid-delivery, hand on the wheel. Daylight through the glass. | none |
| 55.97s | Same marquee, same wide angle. The lead stands centre in the white suit and black flats, hand to chest, sparks still firing. Red drapes and a red practical behind. | none |
| 78.36s | Car again, tighter. Pink hoodie, looking off toward the driver's window, holding a hot-pink-cased phone, a small white Pomeranian on the lap. Parked cars and a commercial strip outside. | none |
| 100.74s | Wide from the doorway of a pilates studio: rows of reformers, big gold hammered pendant lamp overhead, mirrored walls. Four or five women working out; the lead mid-set on a reformer at right. | none |
| 123.13s | Tight two-shot, dark room lit hard red. An older man in a black tactical plate carrier with a holstered sidearm, flag on the ribbed wall behind him. The lead's white-suited shoulder fills the right edge. | none |

**Not visible in the frames:** whether the lead is speaking or singing at 33.58s (mouth open, nothing more to read); how the audio is built; any cuts, camera moves or transitions between these sample points; whether the marquee camera is locked (frames 1 and 3 share the same angle, which suggests it is, but two stills do not prove it).

## What carries the value

The character. One persona, and the wardrobe and props carry the whole read before a line lands: white power suit, blonde wig, gold cross, pink hoodie, pink phone case, tiny white dog, spark-fountain entrance, flag, armed security. Recognition is the payload — the four settings exist only to keep proving the type is consistent. Nothing here is carried by a product, an effect or a text line, which is why this one does not work without a performer who can hold a bit for two minutes straight. Rebuild the structure, but budget for talent.

## Shoot it

**Camera** — phone, vertical, four setups and no more:
- *Car:* wedge the phone at windscreen height on the passenger side, shooting across at the driver. That is the entire rig, and it is where the monologue lives.
- *Room wide:* chest height from the doorway, wide enough that the room reads as a place (the pilates studio is shot this way — the pendant lamp anchors the frame).
- *The stage:* one locked wide holding the whole canopy, returned to more than once so the setting becomes a running gag.
- *Two-shot:* tight, the lead pushed to the very edge of frame so the other character takes the space.

**Light** — take what the room gives you. Car: daylight through the glass, nothing added. Studio: house lights, unmodified. The red beat is a single hard coloured practical with everything else crushed to black. The spark stage is lit *by* the sparks — the fountains are the only source in that frame, so expose for them and let the rest go.

**Wardrobe rules** — this is where the format actually lives:
- One lead, one wig, one makeup look, unchanged in every setting. The character is the continuity; break it and the video is just clips.
- Two outfits that say the same thing in different registers — a formal one for the public beats (white suit, black flats) and a soft one for the private beats (pink hoodie, gold cross, gold bracelet). Same person, same joke, two costumes.
- Props over dialogue: give the character three or four objects a viewer can name on sight. Here: the pink-cased phone, the little white dog, the lectern, the flag.
- Everyone else dresses normally. Only the lead is heightened — the cast reacting in ordinary clothes is what makes the lead read as a bit.

**Where the brand goes:** in the world, not in a text overlay. This format has no on-screen text at all, so the product sits on the lectern, rides in the car, or arrives as the punchline — never as a caption.

## Or generate it

The single most important beat is the entrance at 11.19s — it establishes the character in one frame.

```
vertical 9:16 film still, {SUBJECT} in a bright white tailored blazer and
matching trousers over a black top, long blonde hair, heavy full-glam makeup,
mid-stride walking toward camera with one arm raised, under a white peaked
marquee canopy in a dark room; two cold-spark fountain machines on black boxes
in the foreground firing tall white spark jets up both sides of frame; a wooden
lectern at frame right with {PRODUCT} on it, an American flag hanging on the
dark wall behind; the sparks are the only light source, warm white, everything
else falling to near-black; phone-camera look, slight grain, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** camera near-static and wide at chest height holding the whole canopy; the only movement in frame is {SUBJECT} walking toward it through the falling sparks.

**Text overlay:** none. The source carries no text in any frame — the type label lives in the caption instead: `How {group} in {place} act` followed by a run of flag and laughing-crying emoji.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DWU3zlJATdg/
