# Deadpan label, one take — rebuild sheet

An 8.4-second fixed-camera shower clip: one line pinned on screen the whole time — "Bald people showering:" — and a bald man washing his bare scalp with shampoo, played completely straight. 36,269,448 views · 691,863 likes · @june.the.realtor.

*This structure is not in the format library yet. Proposed id: `new:deadpan-label-one-take`. It sits between the sticky-line maker demo (same pinned line, but that one is handheld, hands-only and product-led) and the locked-frame escalating caption (same locked frame, but that one's text has to shorten beat by beat). This has no product, no cut, and text that never changes.*

**Why it works** — The line is a category header ending in a colon, so the footage is not an ad, it's the answer to a question the caption already planted ("Y'all keep asking how bald guys wash their hair… So I made a tutorial 🧢🧼😂"). Because the text never moves and the camera never moves, the only thing changing is the lather on a bare scalp, and the viewer stays to see whether the joke is actually going to be performed all the way through — it is, with no wink, which is the payoff.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 0.67s | Fixed frame from outside the tub, past the curtain rod. Bald man in the shower, head bent forward toward camera, crown covered in white lather, one hand at the side of his head. | Bald people showering: |
| 2.02s | Same framing. Head still down, lather on the scalp, hand moved down toward the ear and neck. | Bald people showering: |
| 3.37s | Same framing. Both hands up on the head, working the lather across the bare scalp — the fullest "washing my hair" gesture in the video. | Bald people showering: |
| 4.72s | Same framing. Head tilted back under the shower head, water over the face, hands at the sides of the head — the rinse. | Bald people showering: |
| 6.07s | Same framing. Head down again, one hand flat on the crown; scalp now reads wet and dark instead of white. | Bald people showering: |
| 7.42s | Same framing. Head tilted back up, hand wiping down the face, scalp clear of lather — the routine just ends. | Bald people showering: |

Honest gaps: I only have six stills, so I can see the framing is identical at every sample but I cannot prove there are no cuts between them — it reads as one continuous take and should be shot that way. There is no audio evidence here, so whether it carried a voiceover, music or just shower sound is unknown. There is no end card or second text line in any sampled frame.

**What carries the value**

The lather on a bare scalp. White suds where hair should be, worked with the full two-handed shampoo routine and never acknowledged as a joke. Everything else in the frame — tiles, curtain, shower head — is there to make it read as an unstaged real bathroom, not a set.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** Phone, vertical, locked. Prop it outside the tub at roughly curtain-rod height, angled slightly down at the subject. Nothing moves: no handheld drift, no zoom, no cuts. Record one take of the whole routine and use it uncut.
- **Framing.** Subject's head in the upper-middle of frame, the shower head visible top right, the curtain rod and curtain crossing the bottom foreground. That foreground bar is what sells "someone filmed this in their own bathroom".
- **Light.** Whatever the bathroom has overhead. The frames show no window and no added light — even, slightly flat, faintly hazy. Do not light it.
- **Wardrobe.** None visible above the curtain line — bare shoulders. Nothing branded, nothing styled.
- **Performance.** There isn't one. No dialogue, no looking at the lens, no reaction. The subject just does the task. Anyone can shoot this; the only casting requirement is that the person actually has the trait the line names — the joke dies instantly if it's staged by someone who doesn't.
- **Text.** One line, white with a dark outline, upper third, set once and never touched again. It must end in a colon so the footage reads as the answer.

**Or generate it**

The beat worth generating is 3.37s — both hands in the lather.

```
vertical 9:16 photograph shot from outside a bathtub, past a shower curtain rod,
{SUBJECT} standing in the shower with head bent forward toward the camera, both
hands working white lather across a bare scalp, {PRODUCT} the only product in
frame, bare shoulders, cream painted wall and tiled tub surround behind, chrome
shower head at upper right, dark grey shower curtain and its ringed metal rod
crossing the bottom of the frame, plain even overhead bathroom light, no window,
phone-camera look, slight grain, no retouching, no on-screen text
```

**Motion:** camera locked and completely still, propped outside the tub at roughly rod height — only the subject's hands and head move, one continuous take, no zoom and no cuts.

**Text overlay:** `{identity group} {mundane activity}:` — one line, white with a dark outline, upper third, identical words and position from first frame to last.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DUKSYv1FKGk/
