Marquetry

How to use it

Carry most of the clip as inlaid wood pictures of the work, the tools and the result, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the line about care or legacy.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallSuits itSplitSuits 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.

VISUAL STYLE: Marquetry
Slice style ref: sref-V4A9T8
LOOK: a picture inlaid from wood veneers into one smooth polished panel. Maple #E8C99B, mahogany #A86B3C, walnut #5B3A22, ebony #2C1C12, satinwood gold #C9A15B. Walnut is the usual field; light woods carry the subject.
LINE AND FILL: no drawn lines; fine dark seams where pieces meet. Each piece is flat; shading comes only from choosing a lighter or darker wood and from turning the grain direction. Borders use banding (small alternating light and dark pieces) and thin light stringing lines.
TEXTURE: real wood grain in every piece, the grain running along each piece's long axis.
LIGHT: warm interior light on a French-polished surface: a fixed soft sheen and an occasional slow glide of light across the varnish.
CAMERA: locked, square to the panel.
MOTION: pieces slide in from just outside their place like puzzle pieces, turning slightly, with a soft lifted shadow, and lock flush. Stringing lays along its path. Once inlaid, nothing moves.
TYPE: classical inscription caps inlaid in a light wood, revealed as if being set in, with dark seams.
THE RULE: everything is a flat piece of real veneer, cut and fitted flush; if it is not wood, it is not there.
DON'T: no paint or colour outside the wood palette, no gradients across a piece, no curves too fine to cut, no glossy plastic shine, no bouncy motion.
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 picture inlaid from wood veneers into one smooth polished panel. Maple #E8C99B, mahogany #A86B3C, walnut #5B3A22, ebony #2C1C12, satinwood gold #C9A15B. Walnut is the usual field; light woods carry the subject.
• LINE AND FILL: no drawn lines; fine dark seams where pieces meet. Each piece is flat; shading comes only from choosing a lighter or darker wood and from turning the grain direction. Borders use banding (small alternating light and dark pieces) and thin light stringing lines.
• TEXTURE: real wood grain in every piece, the grain running along each piece's long axis.
• LIGHT: warm interior light on a French-polished surface: a fixed soft sheen and an occasional slow glide of light across the varnish.
• CAMERA: locked, square to the panel.
• MOTION: pieces slide in from just outside their place like puzzle pieces, turning slightly, with a soft lifted shadow, and lock flush. Stringing lays along its path. Once inlaid, nothing moves.
• TYPE: classical inscription caps inlaid in a light wood, revealed as if being set in, with dark seams.
• THE RULE: everything is a flat piece of real veneer, cut and fitted flush; if it is not wood, it is not there.
• DON'T: no paint or colour outside the wood palette, no gradients across a piece, no curves too fine to cut, no glossy plastic shine, no bouncy motion.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

Craft, legacy, trades and money talk where quality and patience are the point.

Avoid for

Playful comedy, youth hype or fast lists.

Content

Money or business, Advice, Personal story, Explainer, Nostalgia

Tone

Crafted, Warm, Serious

Pace

Slow

Topics

marquetry, inlay, wood veneer, grain, parquetry, compass rose, polished, craft

Colours

#E8C99B #A86B3C #5B3A22 #2C1C12 #C9A15B

For AIs: this style as plain text.