Archive cut-outs and primaries

How to use it

Carry most of the clip as full-frame archive-photo lessons, building one diagram of flat shapes and labels across the scenes, with a cut 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: Archive cut-outs and primaries
Slice style ref: sref-8TECNE
LOOK: grainy black and white archive photo figures on faint grid paper (#F1F0EB), explaining ideas with flat primary shapes: #1B3FE0 cobalt, #F27C1E orange, #C8E62A lime. #1A1A1A archive black for photos and tags; #E5322D spark red for hand-drawn marker sparks and arrows only.
LINE AND FILL: fills are flat with wavy or straight cut edges. Sparks and arrows are a red marker line with a slight wobble. No gradients anywhere.
TEXTURE: archive photo grain, dust and two or three vertical scratches on figures; faint grid on the paper.
LIGHT: flat.
CAMERA: locked wide, with a slow lateral drift between beats.
MOTION: figures on twos with tiny turns and swings. Colour areas fill up like liquid (a gently waving top edge) or slide in. Sparks pop for 6 frames on the emphasis. Each detail lands on its word and stays.
TYPE: small hand-lettered labels in flat callout tags with rounded-rectangle corners and a little pointer.
THE RULE: people are archive photos; ideas are flat primary shapes.
DON'T: no colour photos, no gradients, no pastel tints, no purple.
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: grainy black and white archive photo figures on faint grid paper (#F1F0EB), explaining ideas with flat primary shapes: #1B3FE0 cobalt, #F27C1E orange, #C8E62A lime. #1A1A1A archive black for photos and tags; #E5322D spark red for hand-drawn marker sparks and arrows only.
• LINE AND FILL: fills are flat with wavy or straight cut edges. Sparks and arrows are a red marker line with a slight wobble. No gradients anywhere.
• TEXTURE: archive photo grain, dust and two or three vertical scratches on figures; faint grid on the paper.
• LIGHT: flat.
• CAMERA: locked wide, with a slow lateral drift between beats.
• MOTION: figures on twos with tiny turns and swings. Colour areas fill up like liquid (a gently waving top edge) or slide in. Sparks pop for 6 frames on the emphasis. Each detail lands on its word and stays.
• TYPE: small hand-lettered labels in flat callout tags with rounded-rectangle corners and a little pointer.
• THE RULE: people are archive photos; ideas are flat primary shapes.
• DON'T: no colour photos, no gradients, no pastel tints, no purple.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

Teaching a concept, a piece of history or some science step by step with simple shapes and labels.

Avoid for

Raw personal emotion or slick modern product talk.

Content

Explainer, How-to, Numbers, Nostalgia

Tone

Thoughtful, Playful, Calm

Pace

Slow

Topics

history, science, education, lesson, invention, research, facts, how it works, discovery, school

Colours

#F1F0EB #1A1A1A #1B3FE0 #F27C1E #C8E62A #E5322D

For AIs: this style as plain text.