# Transformation hook → mechanism explainer — rebuild sheet

A 46-second hair-loss ad by @alphainfuse: one man shown thin-haired in "2025" and full-haired in "2026", then three cutaways explaining why — 4,849,237 views, 91,728 likes. The post has no caption at all, so every word in it is on-screen text.

**Why it works**

The first two frames make the claim before any explanation arrives: same face, same beard, two completely different heads of hair, stamped with two years so the viewer does the maths themselves. The back half then hands them a reason to believe it — animated scalp cutaways and a vial in hand — arriving as a single sentence broken across beats, so the explanation reads as one continuous thought rather than three separate claims.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 3.69s | Back office. Bearded man in a grey tee at a desk, looking down at a laptop, hair short and thin at the crown. A blonde woman beside him is turned toward him, grimacing. Close two-shot at seated eye level. | 2025 / How sad it could be… |
| 11.07s | Gym locker room. The same man, shirtless in dark pants, front double-biceps pose, large full head of curly grey hair. Stall doors behind, sink and folded towel at the frame edge, fluorescent tube overhead. | 2026 / Found Alpha Infuse Micro-infusion System |
| 18.44s | Bathroom. Same man shirtless, both hands lifted into his hair as if working something into the scalp. Beige tile, shower curtain behind, sink counter at the bottom edge. Reads as a mirror or tripod selfie. | After |
| 25.82s | 3D animation, pink background. Green bottle labelled ALPHA inverted, its microneedle head pressed into a cross-section of scalp layers, green serum running down the needles into the tissue; a row of red spiked molecules labelled DHT below. | It absorbed the serum 300% deeper in the scalp |
| 33.2s | A hand holds a small clear vial of green liquid with a silver cap up to camera over a wooden table; a white tray of matching vials sits below, potted plant and pale wall behind, side daylight. | This serum was filled with naturally proven ingredients that reverse hair loss 😉 |
| 40.58s | 3D animation, pink background. Cross-section of skin, a single hair follicle with the shaft rising out of the surface, capillary and tissue layers in pink and red. | and rewakens dead hair follicles 🚀🚀🚀 |

Not visible from six stills: whether there is a voiceover, where the cuts fall between these beats, whether the camera moves in any shot, and whether the 3D animations were made for the brand or licensed. The word "rewakens" in the last frame is the creator's spelling, kept as-is.

**What carries the value**

The man's own head of hair across the two year-stamped frames. Everything after 18 seconds is support — if the before/after does not read instantly on a muted phone screen, nothing in the second half saves it.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera:** phone, vertical, locked on something for every beat. Beat 1 is a close two-shot at seated eye level. Beat 2 is full-body at chest height. Beat 3 is a mirror or tripod selfie, chest-up. No handheld drift needed anywhere — stillness is what lets the hair change register between beats.
- **Light:** whatever the room already has. Beat 1 is plain overhead office light, beat 2 is hard fluorescent tube, beat 3 is flat bathroom light, beat 5 is side daylight from a window. Nothing is lit — do not add anything.
- **Wardrobe:** the before frame is a plain grey t-shirt and a defeated posture at a desk. The after frames are shirtless. Same face, same beard, same skin across all three — the change must be the hair alone, so nothing else about the person may shift. Cast a second person for beat 1 only, to react; they do not speak.
- **The hard part:** you need one subject in two states. Either shoot the before before treatment and the after months later, or generate the pair. There is no shortcut in the edit.
- **The cutaways:** beats 4 and 6 are animation, not footage — commission or licence them. Beat 5 is the only product shot and takes ten seconds at a kitchen table.
- **No one speaks on camera in any frame.** Everything is carried by overlay text.

**Or generate it**

The beat that has to land is 11.07s — the 2026 reveal.

```
vertical 9:16 phone photograph, {SUBJECT} shirtless in plain dark athletic
pants standing in a real gym locker room, painted stall doors and lockers
behind, a sink and a folded towel at the bottom edge of frame, holding a
front double-biceps pose, a full thick head of hair, hard overhead
fluorescent tube light with slight glare on the skin, phone-camera look,
slight grain, no retouching, no on-screen text; {PRODUCT} is not in this
frame — it is named in the overlay only
```

**Motion:** camera static at chest height on the full torso, subject holds the pose and only the flex moves. Whether the source moved here cannot be read from stills, so shoot it locked to match what the frames show.

**Text overlay pattern:** top-centre year stamp per beat — `{YEAR_BEFORE}` → `{YEAR_AFTER}`. Lower-third line under it: `{loss line}…` → `Found {PRODUCT}` → `After`. Then a black-boxed running caption across the three cutaways, one clause per beat, reading as one sentence: `{mechanism claim}` → `{ingredient claim} 😉` → `and {benefit claim} 🚀🚀🚀`.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DZzgwi7NHoc/
