# Subtitled monologue, angle cuts — rebuild sheet

61.8s of one man talking at a lectern in a church, cut between a few locked camera angles, with burned-in speech subtitles and nothing else — 2,721,550 views, 109,105 likes, and a caption that is five hashtags and no sentence.

**Why it works**
There is no product, no cutaway, no b-roll and no proof of anything — the only thing moving the viewer forward is a sentence escalating across the runtime, from a credential ("45 years") to an oath ("I swear before God") to the payoff line, and the burned-in subtitle means that escalation lands with the sound off. The costume and the room do the rest: vestments, a lavalier mic, an engraved lectern and an oil painting read as authority before a word is processed, so the claim arrives pre-endorsed.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 4.94s | Medium-close, locked. Speaker at frame left, head down mid-word; big gold-framed oil painting of biblical figures on a white wall behind him. Black pinstripe jacket, grey waistcoat, cream cravat, lavalier mic on the lapel. | I'VE BEEN WORKING WITH THEM FOR 45 YEARS. |
| 14.82s | Cut to a different locked angle. Speaker centre-left against a dark red-brown marble wall; a gooseneck mic and the white marble lectern ledge cross the bottom of frame. | HE AGAINST THE BLACK MAN. |
| 24.70s | Wider locked angle. He is behind the lectern, both hands on the ledge, looking down. JESUS engraved in gold serif on the lectern face. | *(none at this instant)* |
| 34.59s | Same wide angle. He has stepped to the right of the lectern and stands at the right edge of frame; lectern bottom-left, marble wall filling the rest. | I SWEAR BEFORE GOD. |
| 44.47s | Tighter locked angle. Centred, clear of the lectern, mouth open mid-sentence, arm raised out of frame. An indistinct yellow-and-white object sits at the platform edge bottom-right — the frames do not show what it is. | THEY'RE LIKE MARAUDING MONKEYS |
| 54.35s | Identical framing to the previous beat, unmoved. He is still mid-delivery; the shot just holds while the subtitle turns over to two lines. | KNOCKING OVER THINGS, FIGHTING AND SHOOTING AND KILLING. |

**What carries the value**
The sentence, escalating — credential, then oath, then payoff — carried by the subtitle so it works muted, and underwritten by the authority set. Nothing visual is doing any persuading. That also means this format has no floor: it needs a person who can hold a camera for a minute on delivery alone, which is why it is marked *not replicable without talent*.

One honest note for whoever rebuilds this: what transfers is the structure — locked angles, one speaker, subtitles, a line that escalates. The source's actual words are racial invective and are not part of what you are copying.

**Shoot it**
- **Camera:** one phone on a tripod, chest height, locked — zero movement inside any shot. Get three or four framings by moving the tripod between takes (or by re-framing between sentences): one medium-close, one wider with the lectern/desk edge in shot, one where the speaker stands clear of it. Cut on framing changes only; never pan, never push.
- **Speaker position:** they own the frame. Let them move between beats — behind the lectern, then out beside it — so the shot changes without the camera doing anything.
- **Light:** flat and frontal, even across the face. This is broadcast lighting, not moody — nothing in the frame is lit for effect.
- **Wardrobe:** formal and a step above the audience — jacket, waistcoat, tie or cravat, a small brand mark embroidered at the left chest. Visible lavalier mic; it reads as "this was recorded for a reason".
- **Room:** one deep, plain, expensive-looking surface behind them (marble, wood panel, dark wall) and one authority object in the wide shot with your word engraved or printed on it.
- **Sound:** the audio is the whole product — mic the speaker properly, no music bed audible in the frames sampled.
- **Text:** verbatim subtitles of what they actually say, white all-caps, centred lower third, turning over sentence by sentence. Do not write captions; transcribe.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 broadcast video still, {SUBJECT} standing chest-height and centred in
front of a dark red-brown marble wall panel, mid-sentence with the mouth open and
one arm raised out of frame, wearing a black pinstripe suit jacket over a grey
buttoned waistcoat and a cream cravat, a small {PRODUCT} emblem embroidered on the
left chest, a lavalier microphone clipped to the lapel, even flat frontal television
lighting, slightly soft church-broadcast camera look, no on-screen text
```

*Motion:* locked tripod, absolutely no camera movement for the whole beat — only the head and arms move; the cut to the next beat changes framing size and which side of frame the speaker occupies, never a moving shot.

*Text overlay:* burned-in verbatim speech subtitle, white all-caps with a thin dark outline, centred at the lower third, one or two lines, replaced sentence by sentence as the speaker talks — `"{SPOKEN LINE}"`. No authored captions, no titles, no emoji.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DZnx8mxzDkU/
