# Public reaction, repeat demo — rebuild sheet

A hair tool demoed in the middle of a beauty-supply store aisle with onlookers watching, then hard-cut into tight wordless application shots on the back of a head — 30.2s, no on-screen text anywhere, 118,876 views and 5,095 likes for glossgap.

**Why it works**

Doing it in public, in the aisle of the shop the caption is aiming at, gets the attention a product shot never could — the bystanders in frame do the persuading that a hook line would otherwise have to attempt. Then the cut to close, silent application answers "does it work on hair like mine" by simply showing the straight panel and the untouched curls sitting side by side in the same frame, where the viewer can measure it themselves.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 2.42s | Beauty-supply aisle under flat fluorescent light, shelves of product both sides. Operator in black works a black brush tool down the hair of a subject facing camera in a denim jacket, hair hanging straight over the face. A second woman stands at the right edge. | none |
| 7.25s | Same aisle, wider. The operator holds the tool — black paddle brush, pink back — out toward the lens. Behind them a man watches and a woman films on her own phone. The woman at right holds a product bottle. | none |
| 12.08s | Same staging. The product bottle is held up to camera; the straightened hair hangs down the centre of frame. | none |
| 16.92s | Hard cut to a bathroom, window light, shower door behind. Back of a head in a grey tee — dense coily hair with one section pulled dead straight, a black blow dryer with a concentrator nozzle held against it. No face. | none |
| 21.75s | Salon or vanity room, styling shelves and mirror bulbs blurred behind. Back of the head: a straight silky panel down the crown, ringlets on both sides, the pink-and-black paddle brush drawn through the boundary. | none |
| 26.58s | Same framing, hands out of frame. The finished straight panel runs to the ends, flanked by untouched curl. A mirror at the right edge shows someone in the room. | none |

There is no on-screen text in any of the six frames — not a hook line, not a label, not a caption. Everything verbal in this post lives in the post caption.

**What carries the value**

The side-by-side on one head: a flat, glassy straight panel sitting directly against untouched ringlets in the same frame. The before and the after are on screen at the same second, so nothing has to be claimed.

**What the frames do not show — do not fill these in**

- Whether the onlookers in the store are unpaid strangers or the crew. One of them is filming on her own phone, which reads as a second camera, so treat "real public reaction" as unconfirmed.
- The product label. The bottle held to camera at 12.08s is not legible.
- Whether the bathroom head (16.92s) and the salon head (21.75s / 26.58s) are the same person. The shirt matches; the room and the curl colour do not obviously match.
- Whether anyone speaks. Stills cannot show audio — there may be a voiceover or in-store dialogue carrying more than the frames do.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** Phone, vertical, handheld throughout. Act one: chest height in the aisle, wide enough that the shelves and the people behind stay in frame — the location has to be readable as a real shop, not a set. Act two: in close behind the head, drifting with the stroke, no cut inside a shot, and never pull back to a face.
- **Cut.** Hard cut at the act break — no transition, no matching. The change in scale is the whole turn.
- **Light.** Act one is whatever the shop's overhead fluorescents give you; do not fix it, the flatness is what makes it read as caught. Act two is window light or ordinary warm room light.
- **Wardrobe.** Plain and unstyled — a denim jacket and a grey tee in the original. Nothing that pulls the eye off the hair.
- **The one rule you cannot break.** No text on screen at any point, and no face in act two. If a line has to be said, it goes in the post caption.
- **Frame the payoff for contrast.** Straighten only a section, never the whole head, and shoot the boundary. The untouched texture beside it is the evidence.

**Or generate it**

Image prompt for the payoff beat (21.75s):

```
vertical 9:16 close photograph from behind {SUBJECT}, framed on the back of
the head from crown to mid-back, wearing a plain grey t-shirt; one
dead-straight glossy panel of hair runs down the centre of the crown while
tight untouched ringlets fall on both sides of it, the boundary between the
two textures clearly visible; a hand draws {PRODUCT} through that boundary;
behind, an out-of-focus shelf of styling bottles and warm mirror bulbs in a
small salon room; warm indoor light, phone-camera look, slight grain, no
retouching, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** handheld and close behind the head, drifting down with the stroke as {PRODUCT} is pulled through the hair, no cut inside the shot and no pull back to a face.

**Text overlay:** none — this format carries zero on-screen text at any beat. Everything verbal goes in the post caption, in the shape: `{PROVOCATION about who this threatens} / Tag somebody paying {OLD PRICE}. Comment {WORD} for the link.` The original ran: "The shop is not gonna like this one 😭 / Tag somebody paying silk press prices. Comment SMOOTH for the link."

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DbglLe6vQaw/
