# Subtitled monologue with evidence cutaways — rebuild sheet

A 70-second arm's-length selfie monologue in one dim room, product in hand, with two pieces of borrowed proof pasted into the top of the frame — 388,763 views, 5,086 likes, posted by clairelyyouu.

**Why it works**
The speech captions are chopped one clause to a beat and every one of them is cut off mid-sentence, so there is never a clean place to leave — you are always three words from the end of a thought. The persuasion itself is outsourced: she never argues the claim, she pastes in evidence she did not make (another creator's view counts, a published follicle diagram) over a face that keeps talking, so the proof arrives from outside the room while the presence stays continuous.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 5.61s | Arm's-length selfie, chest-up, dark olive wall, warm light on the face. Mid-sentence, pink-and-orange dropper bottle held up into the bottom of frame. A screen recording of another creator's Instagram profile grid is pasted top-right, one tile ringed with a hand-drawn green circle, view counts legible (790.9K, 1.6M, 4.2M, 2.2M). | "I couldn't believe it..🥰‼️" |
| 16.82s | Same setup, no inset. A small gold beaded chandelier glows on the wall behind her shoulder. Two bottles held up near her chin, one finger raised. | none |
| 28.03s | Same room, she drops lower in frame to clear the top third — a published three-panel hair-follicle cross-section fills it. Both hands open beside her face. | "So it actually like," · diagram reads "Normal Hair Follicle / Cyperus Rotundus Application / Weakened Follicle Result" with its own printed labels (Enzyme, Hair Root, Dermal Papilla, Shrinking Hair Follicle, Blood Vessel) |
| 39.24s | Same setup, no inset. Eyes wide, two fingers raised beside her face. | "I can now go two" |
| 50.46s | Same setup. The bottle held under her chin with the label turned to the lens, a second white-capped dropper beside it. | "so you can use it in your most sensitive" |
| 61.67s | Same setup. The white-capped dropper held up beside her mouth, pink bottle lower in frame, face pulled into an exaggerated reaction. | "Also saw they have a crazy" |

**What carries the value**
The borrowed proof, not the presenter. Someone else's circled view counts and a published diagram do the arguing; her job is to never break the sentence while they land. The post caption then converts on that ("comment 'oil' for product details") rather than on anything demonstrated.

*What the frames do not show:* the product is never applied to anything on camera in the six sampled beats — no before, no after, no demo. There is no second location and no other camera position. Whether there are hard cuts between the sampled beats is not visible from six stills; all six sit in the identical setup, and the framing shifts only enough to make room for the diagram at 28.03s. The light source on her face cannot be identified from the frames — the chandelier behind her is decor, not the key.

**Shoot it**
- **Camera:** phone front camera, held at arm's length, chest-up, the same distance and angle for the whole runtime. No tripod look, no second angle, no cutaway. Sit low enough in frame that the top third stays empty — that empty space is where the evidence goes, and it has to be there from the first frame or the paste-in will cover your face.
- **Light:** one warm frontal source on the face only; let the rest of the room go dark. One practical lamp visible behind the shoulder for depth. Do not light the room evenly — the darkness is what makes the pasted white graphic pop.
- **Wardrobe:** plain, one colour, no busy pattern (hers: cream knit, sunglasses pushed up on the head, dark red nails, gold rings). Hands are in frame constantly holding the product, so the manicure and the label are part of the shot.
- **Performance:** speak in one unbroken run and cut the subtitles so every card ends mid-clause. Hold the product up into the bottom of frame most of the time — turn the label to the lens on at least one beat.
- **The evidence:** collect it before you shoot. One screen recording of third-party numbers with the relevant tile ringed by hand, and one published mechanism diagram. Paste each into the empty top third at the beat where the words need proof, and take it away again.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16, {SUBJECT} chest-up at arm's length to a front-facing phone camera in a dim interior corner, dark olive-brown wall behind them, a small gold beaded chandelier wall light glowing warm behind one shoulder, warm light on the face with the rest of the room falling into shadow, cream knit sweater, sunglasses pushed up on the head, dark red manicure and gold rings, {PRODUCT} held up into the lower frame, mouth open mid-sentence, seated low enough to leave the top third of the frame empty, phone front-camera look, slight grain, no retouching, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** camera held at arm's length and effectively still for the whole beat — no cut, no push, no reframe; only the head, hands and {PRODUCT} move, and the empty top third is where the borrowed still is composited afterwards.

**Text overlay:** small white sans-serif speech captions centred low, one clause per beat, always cut off mid-sentence — opening beat `{reaction line}..{emoji}{emoji}`, then `{clause}`, `{clause}`, `{clause}` — with borrowed evidence dropped into the empty top of the frame on the proof beats: `{screen recording, the relevant tile ringed by hand}` and `{published diagram with its own printed labels}`.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DTwyT-ZjHgj/
