# Open-question criteria cards — rebuild sheet

A 20.15s post by `_jrwarren`: a friend's throwaway line sets up a question that is never closed, and four quoted requirements — each stamped with a scripture citation — answer it over four different scenes of the same man. 381,900 views · 21,597 likes.

**Why it works**

The second beat leaves a sentence hanging ("But will she") and every card after it is a grammatical completion of that stem, so the viewer is reading toward an ending the video never actually delivers — the list just stops. Each card is written in the other person's voice and stamped with a chapter-and-verse citation, which converts one man's preference into a standard with an outside authority behind it, while the scenes underneath quietly show he already holds up his side.

**The beats**

| Time | What happens | On-screen text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1.61s | Night. Medium across a lit pool at water height — shirtless man standing waist-deep, gold chain, looking off-lens, warm cabana glow behind | She's sexy bro you should date her |
| 4.84s | Interior. Wide, straight on at floor level — same man alone partway up an open floating staircase, black tee, hand at his chin | But will she |
| 8.06s | Kitchen, evening. Medium side profile — white tank, seated at a white island, head bowed, palms together over a plated meal | "Pray over my struggles" (Philippians 4:6) |
| 11.28s | Tight close at the stove — head cropped at the eyes, tattooed arm dropping something into a pan on a lit gas ring | "Honor my efforts" (1 Thessalonians 5:11) |
| 14.51s | Night. Medium side profile at an outdoor built-in grill, control knobs glowing blue, dark planting behind | "Protect my reputation" (Proverbs 31:11) |
| 17.73s | Night. Medium wide on a red carpet — cream dinner jacket, facing a press line of photographers, string lights overhead | "Support my dreams" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10) |

Two things the stills genuinely cannot tell you, and I am not going to guess at them: whether the camera moves inside any beat, and whether the man ever speaks — nothing in these six frames is a speech subtitle, so treat the piece as scored and wordless until someone watches it with sound.

**What carries the value**

The cited criteria cards. Each one is a demand written as a line *she* would say, in quotes, with the citation bracketed underneath in the same type — that citation is doing the persuading, because it moves the line from opinion to rule. The locations are receipts, not the argument: they exist so the man is already visibly meeting each demand as it is stated.

**Shoot it**

- **Camera.** Six separate setups, one per beat, no continuity between them and no attempt to match. Two wides (a distance shot across water or a room, and a straight-on wide of the whole body in an architectural space), two medium side profiles, one tight close-up on the hands working, one medium wide on a public/status scene. Vertical throughout. Shoot each beat locked or near-locked and let the scene change do the work — the cut between locations is the edit's whole rhythm.
- **Light.** Half the beats are night, and the light is always practical and coloured: pool light from below, a warm cabana glow, kitchen downlight with the background dropping into shadow, a blue gas flame, glowing grill knobs, string lights. This is graded, considered light — not the flat phone-camera look most of the library runs on. Daylight only for the interior wide.
- **Wardrobe.** Wardrobe changes on every single beat and that is what makes six clips read as one life: swim shorts, a black printed tee, a plain white tank for both cooking scenes, a cream dinner jacket for the close. Keep the same person and the same jewellery throughout — the chain is the only thing that carries between beats.
- **Text.** Centred white sans with a soft shadow, no box. Position drifts between high and low frame — it sits wherever the picture is empty, not in one fixed spot. Two lines per card: the quoted requirement, then the citation in brackets under it, smaller.
- **Talent.** This one does need a body on camera in several locations, including a public event that is hard to stage — the format is not hands-only and the card unit alone will not carry it.

**Or generate it**

The beat worth generating first is the third — the first cited card, because it establishes the repeating unit.

```
vertical 9:16 cinematic photograph, medium side profile of {SUBJECT} in a plain white
ribbed tank top, seated on a stool at a white waterfall-edge kitchen island in a modern
home at evening, head bowed and palms pressed together over a plated meal in front of
them, a drink bottle and a bowl of fruit on the counter behind, a dark window and a
wall-mounted screen further back, warm low kitchen light from above with the background
falling into shadow, shallow depth of field, colour-graded and clean rather than
phone-camera rough, no on-screen text — {PRODUCT} placed on the island beside the plate
if the rebuild needs it in shot; the source frame has no product in it
```

**Motion:** hold a still medium profile on the seated subject for the whole beat, only their breathing and their head lowering — the stills cannot show whether the source camera moved, so shoot it locked unless you have reason to do otherwise.

**Text overlay pattern:**

- Beat 1 — `"{WHAT SOMEONE ELSE ASSERTS ABOUT THE SUBJECT}"`
- Beat 2 — the bare open stem: `{But will she / But will it / But does it}`
- Beats 3-6, one card each, every one a completion of that stem:
  `"{REQUIREMENT IN THEIR OWN VOICE}"` / `({SOURCE CITATION})`

Nothing is pinned, nothing repeats, and the stem is never closed with a summary line — the last card is the end.

**Reference:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DUSJXIRiFm5/
