Hands that offer

How to use it

Tell most of the clip with cut-out hands passing real objects in and out of frame, each gesture a choice or a gift in the story, cutting back to the speaker once or twice when the face matters.

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: Hands that offer
Slice style ref: sref-D34GDR
LOOK: hands and objects. Real photographed hands, cut out at the wrist or forearm with no faces ever, reach in from the edges of the frame to offer, hold, point at and pass real objects. Hands and objects keep their natural colour. Behind them are dead-flat colour fields with straight edges: ochre #E3A93B over deep teal #1F5C55, with one flat tomato disc #C8442E as a halo behind the most important hand.
PICTURES: hands photographed on plain backgrounds (open palms, cupped hands, a pointing finger, a hand holding something small), engraved pointing hands from old printed books, and single everyday objects (an egg, a fruit, a key, a flower). Where to get them: public-domain and CC0 collections (The Met Open Access, Smithsonian Open Access, Biodiversity Heritage Library plates, NASA, Wikimedia Commons files marked public domain or CC0), Slice's stock search, or the person's own photos. Cut every object out cleanly; never use a picture with a real brand or logo on it.
LINE AND FILL: no outlines. Soft contact shadows only under the hands. Engraved hands stay as black ink line art.
CAMERA: locked and flat. The one peak is a single object passing between hands: it drops or is handed across and is caught with a small dip.
MOTION: hands slide in slowly from the frame edges and stop; they breathe very slightly while held. Objects are placed, never thrown.
TYPE: at most two short lines in a condensed sans in near-black #1A1A18, sitting in the flat colour, after the key moment.
THE RULE: every hand is doing something with an object; the hands tell the story, never a face.
DON'T: no faces or bodies, no hands that just wave, no busy backgrounds, no bouncing, no purple.
Treat these as the look, never a template: choose fresh objects, 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: hands and objects. Real photographed hands, cut out at the wrist or forearm with no faces ever, reach in from the edges of the frame to offer, hold, point at and pass real objects. Hands and objects keep their natural colour. Behind them are dead-flat colour fields with straight edges: ochre #E3A93B over deep teal #1F5C55, with one flat tomato disc #C8442E as a halo behind the most important hand.
• PICTURES: hands photographed on plain backgrounds (open palms, cupped hands, a pointing finger, a hand holding something small), engraved pointing hands from old printed books, and single everyday objects (an egg, a fruit, a key, a flower). Where to get them: public-domain and CC0 collections (The Met Open Access, Smithsonian Open Access, Biodiversity Heritage Library plates, NASA, Wikimedia Commons files marked public domain or CC0), Slice's stock search, or the person's own photos. Cut every object out cleanly; never use a picture with a real brand or logo on it.
• LINE AND FILL: no outlines. Soft contact shadows only under the hands. Engraved hands stay as black ink line art.
• CAMERA: locked and flat. The one peak is a single object passing between hands: it drops or is handed across and is caught with a small dip.
• MOTION: hands slide in slowly from the frame edges and stop; they breathe very slightly while held. Objects are placed, never thrown.
• TYPE: at most two short lines in a condensed sans in near-black #1A1A18, sitting in the flat colour, after the key moment.
• THE RULE: every hand is doing something with an object; the hands tell the story, never a face.
• DON'T: no faces or bodies, no hands that just wave, no busy backgrounds, no bouncing, no purple.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: choose fresh objects, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

giving, receiving, choosing or keeping something

Avoid for

data, comedy, hype

Content

Advice, Faith, Wellbeing, Something emotional, How-to, Personal story

Tone

Warm, Gentle, Sincere

Pace

Slow

Topics

hands, offering, gift, pointing, hold, care

Colours

#E3A93B #1F5C55 #C8442E #F1E9DB #1A1A18

For AIs: this style as plain text.