# Running caption over borrowed cutaways — rebuild sheet

A 42s callout video: a presenter cut-out pinned at the bottom of frame the whole way through while the rest of the screen cycles through a court filing, a pasted carcinogen classification, store shelf footage and an ingredient-app screen. 1,079,802 views · 11,326 likes · @scout.health.

**Why it works**
Every claim is carried by something the creator did not make — a legal document, a published classification, an app score — so the presenter never has to be believed, only followed. The caption box changes every beat and is cut off mid-sentence every time, so there is no completed thought anywhere in the runtime to leave on.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
|---|---|---|
| 3.38s | Handheld into a retail shelf stacked with the product, price labels visible, a hand reaching in from the top of frame. Presenter cut-out pinned across the bottom third. | `cancer-causing chemicals` |
| 10.13s | Full-frame screenshot of a court filing, "NATURE OF THE ACTION" readable. Cut-out still pinned, unmoved. | `Benzoyl peroxide` |
| 16.88s | Borrowed dark bar footage — spirits, a lit cigarette — with a pasted white-on-black quote block over the middle of frame. | `category as cigarettes` over the pasted block: *"Benzene is officially classified as a Group 1 human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)… primarily through its association with leukemias like acute myeloid leukemia (AML)."* |
| 23.64s | Back in store, a bottle held close to the lens, the claim panel on the front of pack readable. | `There is no safe level` |
| 30.39s | Screen recording of an ingredient-rating app: a beneficial/harmful count row, then a red/green ingredient list. | `Synthetic fragrance o` — clipped at the frame edge in the stills; the full fragment isn't legible |
| 37.14s | Same app, a product page scoring 97 / "Excellent" with badges and a summary. | none |

The presenter is in all six frames and is never cut to full-frame. Frames 2, 3, 5 and 6 have no camera of their own — they're screenshots, a screen recording and borrowed footage. The frames don't show what the presenter is saying, whether there's music, or how the cuts are timed to speech; only that the caption advances at every beat.

**What carries the value**
The borrowed evidence stack — the filing, the classification quote, the shelf, the app score — none of it made by the creator, all of it read under a caption that is always mid-sentence. The presenter's job is only to be continuously present so four unrelated sources read as one argument.

**Shoot it**
- **Camera:** two jobs only. One handheld phone pass in a real store — walk the shelf, hold one unit up to the lens, plain overhead retail light, no tripod. And one static chest-up recording of the presenter against a plain background, filmed once, cut out and pinned in the same spot for the whole edit. It never moves and is never cut to full-frame.
- **Everything else is captured, not shot:** screenshot the document, screen-record the app, drop in the stock clip. Paste the quote block as a flat white-on-black card over the middle of the borrowed footage.
- **Light:** whatever the store gives you; the presenter panel wants flat even light so it sits consistently over six different backgrounds.
- **Wardrobe:** plain dark top, nothing branded, nothing that dates. The panel is on screen for 42 seconds straight — it has to disappear.
- **Caption:** one box, same position every beat, word-by-word highlight (spoken word white, the rest grey), and every card cut off mid-sentence. Never pin a headline.

**Or generate it**

```
vertical 9:16 handheld phone photograph looking straight into a retail shelf
stacked with {PRODUCT}, shelf-edge price labels legible, a bare hand reaching
in from the top of frame toward one unit, plain overhead store lighting,
slight grain, no retouching, no on-screen text — with {SUBJECT} composited
chest-up across the bottom third as a cut-out panel, plain dark t-shirt,
plain background behind them, looking straight at the lens
```

*Motion:* the cut-out panel is absolutely static across every beat (same seed); only the upper part of the frame moves — a slow handheld drift along the shelf, no zoom and no cut inside the beat.

*Text overlay:* one caption box in the identical lower-middle position all runtime, words changing every beat with the spoken word highlighted white against grey, each card cut off mid-sentence — `{fragment of the running narration}` → `{next fragment}` → `{next fragment}`. Never a completed sentence, never a pinned headline.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DY3Pxumuq1X/
