Contour trail map

How to use it

Climb a trail across a walking map through most of the clip, marking each milestone on the way up, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the start and the summit.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallSuits itSplitSuits itSideWorksDrawn overAvoid

Split: the scene above, the speaker below. 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.

VISUAL STYLE: Contour trail map
Slice style ref: sref-AY8M8S
A printed walking map on cream paper, the kind folded into a pocket. Ground: cream map paper #EFE6CF with light mottling, faint fold creases and a pale blue grid. Terrain: soft hypsometric tints stepping from pale green #DCE3C0 in the valleys through sand and tan #D2A87C to near white at the tops, a gentle hill shade from the upper left, woodland as a green tint #A9C08E with tiny round tree marks, water in blue #5E93B8 with a lighter centre line. Line: fine brown contours #9A6A3E, every fifth one heavier, a little toner bleed. Type: small spaced monospace capitals (DM Mono) for place names and spot heights, set along the land. Accent: the route as red dashes #C8442E on a cream casing, a small red position dot with a soft pulse, a red flag at the top. Data: one clean label chip with an elevation number that climbs with the line. Camera: a slow, steady tilt that follows the walker up the sheet. Motion: the route draws on at walking pace, never jumping; arriving is the one peak (the flag lifts and the number turns red); then the sheet dissolves back to the start. The one rule: it must read as a real printed map, with the line as the only thing moving. DON'T: satellite photos, sat-nav screens, glowing UI, 3D terrain, fast zooms, more than one route.
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

• A printed walking map on cream paper, the kind folded into a pocket.
• Ground: cream map paper #EFE6CF with light mottling, faint fold creases and a pale blue grid.
• Terrain: soft hypsometric tints stepping from pale green #DCE3C0 in the valleys through sand and tan #D2A87C to near white at the tops, a gentle hill shade from the upper left, woodland as a green tint #A9C08E with tiny round tree marks, water in blue #5E93B8 with a lighter centre line.
• Line: fine brown contours #9A6A3E, every fifth one heavier, a little toner bleed.
• Type: small spaced monospace capitals (DM Mono) for place names and spot heights, set along the land.
• Accent: the route as red dashes #C8442E on a cream casing, a small red position dot with a soft pulse, a red flag at the top.
• Data: one clean label chip with an elevation number that climbs with the line.
• Camera: a slow, steady tilt that follows the walker up the sheet.
• Motion: the route draws on at walking pace, never jumping; arriving is the one peak (the flag lifts and the number turns red); then the sheet dissolves back to the start.
• The one rule: it must read as a real printed map, with the line as the only thing moving.
• DON'T: satellite photos, sat-nav screens, glowing UI, 3D terrain, fast zooms, more than one route.

What it suits

Best for

long efforts told as a climb: progress over time, milestones, how far you have come

Avoid for

comedy, hype launches and anything about one sudden moment

Content

Personal story, Advice, Money or business, Numbers, Wellbeing

Tone

Steady, Determined, Grounded, Hopeful

Pace

Slow

Topics

topographic map, contour lines, trail, elevation, hiking, printed map, journey

Colours

#EFE6CF #9A6A3E #C8442E #5E93B8 #A9C08E

For AIs: this style as plain text.