Editorial highlight collage

How to use it

Run most of the clip as full-frame black and white collage scenes with the key words punched out in highlight boxes, cutting back to the speaker once or twice.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallSuits itSplitWorksSideSuits itDrawn overAvoid

Full scene: the scene fills the frame. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story.

STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything.
1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal.
2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside.
3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen.
4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next.
5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence.
6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay.
7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures.
8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it.
9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold.
10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice.
11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects.
12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label.
13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects.
14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less.

PICTURES: this style uses photo cut-outs. Before you start, ask the person one short question: use stills from their own clip, Slice's stock search, their own uploads, or (only if you can make images) images you generate. If they don't mind, use stills from the clip, then stock.

VISUAL STYLE: Editorial highlight collage
Slice style ref: sref-8PBAYA
LOOK: black and white photo cut-outs on #F0ECE3 newsprint, with words punched out of hot #E8247E magenta dry-brush highlight boxes. Photos are #1D1D1B black to paper white with #8C8A84 mid grey shapes behind; one or two small parts may be hand-coloured in #3B8FD9 blue.
LINE AND FILL: one thin magenta hand-drawn line loops across the whole piece, joining the scenes. Highlight boxes are dry-brush rectangles with a rough, streaky right edge.
TEXTURE: paper grain, photo grain, rough brush edges.
LIGHT: flat, a faint soft shadow under the cut-outs at most.
CAMERA: a slow pan across one wide collage, with the type locked to the screen.
MOTION: highlight boxes brush on left to right in about 8 frames and the words appear inside them; cut-outs slide in on twos; the loop line draws on continuously. Everything else holds.
TYPE: a high-contrast editorial serif (a modern Didone or transitional, never Instrument Serif) in white on the magenta box, with a small spaced sans kicker above.
THE RULE: words only live inside brush highlights; pictures stay black and white.
DON'T: no colour photos, no clean vector boxes, no pills, no more than one highlight colour.
Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• LOOK: black and white photo cut-outs on #F0ECE3 newsprint, with words punched out of hot #E8247E magenta dry-brush highlight boxes. Photos are #1D1D1B black to paper white with #8C8A84 mid grey shapes behind; one or two small parts may be hand-coloured in #3B8FD9 blue.
• LINE AND FILL: one thin magenta hand-drawn line loops across the whole piece, joining the scenes. Highlight boxes are dry-brush rectangles with a rough, streaky right edge.
• TEXTURE: paper grain, photo grain, rough brush edges.
• LIGHT: flat, a faint soft shadow under the cut-outs at most.
• CAMERA: a slow pan across one wide collage, with the type locked to the screen.
• MOTION: highlight boxes brush on left to right in about 8 frames and the words appear inside them; cut-outs slide in on twos; the loop line draws on continuously. Everything else holds.
• TYPE: a high-contrast editorial serif (a modern Didone or transitional, never Instrument Serif) in white on the magenta box, with a small spaced sans kicker above.
• THE RULE: words only live inside brush highlights; pictures stay black and white.
• DON'T: no colour photos, no clean vector boxes, no pills, no more than one highlight colour.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

Documentary-style takes on culture, history or society, with the key words punched out.

Avoid for

Children's content, light comedy or soft wellbeing talk.

Content

Opinion, News, Explainer, Nostalgia

Tone

Bold, Serious, Thoughtful

Pace

Slow

Topics

culture, society, history, politics, documentary, media, change, justice, movement, journalism

Colours

#F0ECE3 #1D1D1B #8C8A84 #E8247E #3B8FD9

For AIs: this style as plain text.