Footage in letters

How to use it

Play the speaker's own footage inside huge letters through most of the clip, breaking out to the full frame once or twice for the moments that matter.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallAvoidSplitSuits itSideWorksDrawn 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: Footage in letters
Slice style ref: sref-GYBQQ4
Look and motion: Footage in letters. Ground #0B0B0B black; the only fill of the type is the speaker's own footage (clip stills, stock or uploads all work), given a slight warm grade toward #F6C59A, with cool and violet tones pulled down, and footage grain. #FFFFFF only if a tiny label is ever needed. Type: a very bold lowercase grotesque, tight leading, each line scaled to fill the frame width, so a short word becomes enormous; letters are windows with no outline and no flat fill. Light is the footage's own light. Camera: the type is locked while the footage slowly pushes and pans inside it. Motion: words stack in one at a time, each line revealed upward like a blind on its spoken word; then on the emotional beat the window morphs with a smooth ease from letters into an arch and on into the full frame, holds, and closes back into the letters. If no picture exists at all, fill the letters with a moving warm gradient, a soft figure shape and grain. The one rule: the type is a window onto the real footage. Don'ts: no filled type over footage, no thin type, no second colour, no hard cuts.
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 and motion: Footage in letters.
• Ground #0B0B0B black; the only fill of the type is the speaker's own footage (clip stills, stock or uploads all work), given a slight warm grade toward #F6C59A, with cool and violet tones pulled down, and footage grain. #FFFFFF only if a tiny label is ever needed.
• Type: a very bold lowercase grotesque, tight leading, each line scaled to fill the frame width, so a short word becomes enormous; letters are windows with no outline and no flat fill.
• Light is the footage's own light.
• Camera: the type is locked while the footage slowly pushes and pans inside it.
• Motion: words stack in one at a time, each line revealed upward like a blind on its spoken word; then on the emotional beat the window morphs with a smooth ease from letters into an arch and on into the full frame, holds, and closes back into the letters.
• If no picture exists at all, fill the letters with a moving warm gradient, a soft figure shape and grain.
• The one rule: the type is a window onto the real footage.
• Don'ts: no filled type over footage, no thin type, no second colour, no hard cuts.

What it suits

Best for

Personal and nostalgic openers where the speaker's own footage fills big letters.

Avoid for

Charts, abstract ideas or clips without usable footage.

Content

Personal story, Nostalgia, Something emotional, Interview

Tone

Tender, Warm, Nostalgic

Pace

Slow

Topics

personal, nostalgia, travel, memories, home, family, journey, hometown, roots, story

Colours

#0B0B0B #F6C59A #FFFFFF

For AIs: this style as plain text.