# Split-screen mechanism verdict — rebuild sheet

A 13.7s locked selfie where the frame is split in two: a UV camera on top showing the product as tone on the skin, the normal camera below showing the hands doing the work — 6,125,299 views, 26,732 likes, by carewithkate.

**Why it works**

The top pane is an instrument, so the claim is not argued, it is measured — the viewer watches sprayed-and-left read as bright mottle and rubbed-in read as smooth dark on the same face in the same second. The verdict line is pinned from the first frame and never changes, so there is no setup to sit through and no payoff to wait for; the whole runtime is evidence accumulating under a sentence you have already read.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1.1s | **Top (UV):** face bright and freckle-speckled, almost nothing reading yet; her hand a motion blur at frame right. **Bottom:** she holds a yellow-and-green aerosol up beside her jaw and sprays toward her face, head tipped away from the nozzle. | psa: you need to rub in your spray sunscreens |
| 3.29s | **Top:** product now reads as smooth dark across the nose and one cheek, with bright blotches and a hard glossy streak elsewhere — visibly uneven. **Bottom:** eyes closed, face square to camera, hands down, mouth part-open as if speaking. | psa: you need to rub in your spray sunscreens |
| 5.49s | **Top:** a large smooth dark patch appears over the mouth and lower cheek exactly where the hand is working; the forehead stays bright and mottled. **Bottom:** flat of the hand pressed to the lower cheek, rubbing. | psa: you need to rub in your spray sunscreens |
| 7.68s | **Top:** hand crosses the forehead and brow, a worked smear following it; the far side of the face still mottled. **Bottom:** fingers rubbing at the brow and under-eye, ring visible. | psa: you need to rub in your spray sunscreens |
| 9.88s | **Top:** most of the face now smoothly dark; a bright speckled band left along the jaw and down the neck. **Bottom:** chin lifted, she points a finger down at her neck and chest. | psa: you need to rub in your spray sunscreens |
| 12.07s | **Top:** the face reads split down the middle — screen-left smoothly dark, screen-right still bright and mottled. **Bottom:** settled, hands down, slight smile to camera. | psa: you need to rub in your spray sunscreens |

Two things the frames do not show, so do not assume them: whether there is a voiceover or she is talking to camera (her mouth is open in several beats but nothing is subtitled beyond the pinned line), and whether that split face at 12.07s is a deliberate half-and-half comparison or simply where she stopped rubbing.

**What carries the value**

The UV pane. Not the product, not the person, not the line — the visible difference between sprayed-and-left and sprayed-and-rubbed on one face at one moment. Shoot this without the instrument view and you have a talking head making a claim; the whole format is that a machine is doing the arguing while a person does the demonstrating.

**Shoot it**

- **Two cameras, both locked.** A UV / sunscreen camera pointed at the face, and a phone propped at eye level on the same face. Nothing pans, nothing zooms, there are no cuts — the bottom pane's framing is identical in all six frames, which is what makes the change legible. Roll both, clap or spray on the count so you can line them up, then stack them in the edit: UV on top, normal below.
- **Two rooms, effectively.** The UV pane needs a dark room — its background falls to black. The normal pane is soft even daylight from the front, real lived-in room behind (in the source: cream panelled cabinets, a shelf of bottles at frame right, a lamp with a white pleated shade). Shoot the UV pass in the dark, the normal pass in the light, same seat, same distance.
- **Wardrobe:** plain white crew-neck t-shirt, hair down, no styling, minimal or no makeup, skin texture and freckles left alone. Anything reflective or patterned fights the UV pane.
- **Performance:** none required. Spray, then work it in with the flat of the hand and the fingertips, slowly enough that the tone changes on camera. Leave one area unworked so the contrast survives to the last frame.
- **The line goes up first and never moves.** Two lines, lowercase, white with a soft shadow, sitting on the seam between the panes.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 split-screen frame, one subject shown twice at the same moment.
TOP HALF: a UV / sunscreen-camera view of {SUBJECT} — black-and-white, surroundings
falling to black, skin rendered as tone so that {PRODUCT} reads as a smooth dark
patch over the lower cheek and mouth where a hand is working it in, while the
forehead and far cheek stay bright and blotchy, freckles and texture visible, no
retouching. BOTTOM HALF: the same {SUBJECT} in the same second under normal light,
plain white crew-neck t-shirt, long hair down, no styling, the flat of one hand
pressed against the lower cheek rubbing product in, eyes to camera; behind them a
real room — cream panelled cabinet doors, a dark shelf with bottles at frame right,
a table lamp with a white pleated shade. Soft even daylight from the front,
phone-camera look, slight grain, both panes at the same eye-level selfie framing,
no on-screen text.
```

**Motion:** both panes locked and synchronised — the phone is propped, nothing pans or zooms and there are no cuts; only the hand moves across the face, and the tone under it changes as it goes.

**Text overlay:** one line pinned in the same place for the entire runtime, unchanged, on the seam between the two panes — `psa: you need to {CORRECTIVE ACTION} your {PRODUCT CATEGORY}` — lowercase, two lines, plain white with a soft shadow.

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