Paper shadow box

How to use it

Stack paper layers into a shadow box through most of the clip, the scene getting lighter as the story turns towards hope, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the quiet lesson.

Where the speaker sits

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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.

VISUAL STYLE: Paper shadow box
Slice style ref: sref-NVBHGP
LOOK: a shadow box of hand-cut coloured paper. Five to seven flat layers stacked with real depth, each casting a soft shadow onto the layer behind it. Palette: misty sky card #DCE6E1, hill greens from pale #BFD1BC through #98B69C, #73987F and #507A68 to deep #2F5B4E in front, one warm coral #EC7A58 for a sun or the focal piece, cream #F5EFE1 for small details. A cream inner frame with its own shadow.
LINE AND FILL: no outlines. Flat paper colours with gently uneven scissor-cut edges and a faint light line along each cut. Front layers are darker, back layers paler (atmosphere made of paper).
TEXTURE: visible paper fibre and tooth on every layer, a little grain over everything.
LIGHT: soft light from above and in front; depth comes from the stacked shadows, never from gradients on the paper.
CAMERA: locked, with a slow sideways drift that makes the layers slide at different speeds (parallax). At most one gentle push where the front layers grow a little more than the back.
MOTION: stop-motion on twos with a hair of jitter on each layer. Pieces rise, sink, slide or flap a few frames at a time. The one big move: the focal piece clears a layer or the light warms across the whole box, then everything holds.
TYPE: none, or a few words cut from paper with the same shadows.
THE RULE: everything is a flat paper layer, and depth only ever comes from shadows between layers.
DON'T: no gradients on shapes, no outlines, no smooth 60 fps tweening, no 3D rendering, no bright digital colours, 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: a shadow box of hand-cut coloured paper. Five to seven flat layers stacked with real depth, each casting a soft shadow onto the layer behind it. Palette: misty sky card #DCE6E1, hill greens from pale #BFD1BC through #98B69C, #73987F and #507A68 to deep #2F5B4E in front, one warm coral #EC7A58 for a sun or the focal piece, cream #F5EFE1 for small details. A cream inner frame with its own shadow.
• LINE AND FILL: no outlines. Flat paper colours with gently uneven scissor-cut edges and a faint light line along each cut. Front layers are darker, back layers paler (atmosphere made of paper).
• TEXTURE: visible paper fibre and tooth on every layer, a little grain over everything.
• LIGHT: soft light from above and in front; depth comes from the stacked shadows, never from gradients on the paper.
• CAMERA: locked, with a slow sideways drift that makes the layers slide at different speeds (parallax). At most one gentle push where the front layers grow a little more than the back.
• MOTION: stop-motion on twos with a hair of jitter on each layer. Pieces rise, sink, slide or flap a few frames at a time. The one big move: the focal piece clears a layer or the light warms across the whole box, then everything holds.
• TYPE: none, or a few words cut from paper with the same shadows.
• THE RULE: everything is a flat paper layer, and depth only ever comes from shadows between layers.
• DON'T: no gradients on shapes, no outlines, no smooth 60 fps tweening, no 3D rendering, no bright digital colours, 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

gentle stories with a turn towards hope: a new start, a hard season ending, a quiet lesson

Avoid for

data, sharp opinions, fast comedy or technical how-tos

Content

Personal story, Wellbeing, Faith, Something emotional, Nostalgia, Advice

Tone

Gentle, Hopeful, Warm, Handmade

Pace

Slow

Topics

paper cut, layered paper, shadow box, diorama, stop motion, depth, handmade, parallax

Colours

#DCE6E1 #BFD1BC #73987F #2F5B4E #EC7A58 #F5EFE1

For AIs: this style as plain text.