Balanced stack

How to use it

Build a tower of objects through most of the clip, one piece per step or task, until it holds, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the wobble and the pay-off.

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: Balanced stack
Slice style ref: sref-XQHVKT
LOOK: a monochrome object stack. Real photographed objects of different kinds and sizes are stacked into one improbable, balanced tower: a carved stone base, a machine, a camera, a fruit, an egg on top. Every photo is recoloured into a single two-colour wash, deep green #1E3A30 shadows to pale sage #DCE5D6 lights, on a flat sage ground #A9BFA8 with a slightly darker floor band.
PICTURES: solid everyday and museum objects shot on plain grounds, chosen for their shapes: blocks, cylinders, spheres, eggs, fruit, tools, books, stone fragments. Colour does not matter, the wash replaces it. 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. One soft contact shadow on the floor only. Light grain.
CAMERA: locked, centred, symmetrical. No camera move.
MOTION: each object is lowered from above by an invisible hand and set down; the tower gives the tiniest settle after each one. The one peak is the last, smallest object: the tower sways once, gently, and holds.
TYPE: optional, one or two words in tall condensed capitals in the deep green, above the tower, after it holds.
THE RULE: one colour family for everything, and the stack always ends up balanced.
DON'T: no natural photo colour, no second accent colour, no falling or crashing, no people, 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: a monochrome object stack. Real photographed objects of different kinds and sizes are stacked into one improbable, balanced tower: a carved stone base, a machine, a camera, a fruit, an egg on top. Every photo is recoloured into a single two-colour wash, deep green #1E3A30 shadows to pale sage #DCE5D6 lights, on a flat sage ground #A9BFA8 with a slightly darker floor band.
• PICTURES: solid everyday and museum objects shot on plain grounds, chosen for their shapes: blocks, cylinders, spheres, eggs, fruit, tools, books, stone fragments. Colour does not matter, the wash replaces it. 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. One soft contact shadow on the floor only. Light grain.
• CAMERA: locked, centred, symmetrical. No camera move.
• MOTION: each object is lowered from above by an invisible hand and set down; the tower gives the tiniest settle after each one. The one peak is the last, smallest object: the tower sways once, gently, and holds.
• TYPE: optional, one or two words in tall condensed capitals in the deep green, above the tower, after it holds.
• THE RULE: one colour family for everything, and the stack always ends up balanced.
• DON'T: no natural photo colour, no second accent colour, no falling or crashing, no people, 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

building something step by step, juggling, balance

Avoid for

celebration, comedy, breaking news

Content

Advice, Money or business, Wellbeing, How-to, Personal story

Tone

Steady, Quiet, Focused

Pace

Slow

Topics

stack, balance, build, monochrome, steps, objects

Colours

#A9BFA8 #1E3A30 #DCE5D6 #2E4A3E #7E9A80

For AIs: this style as plain text.