VHS terminal

How to use it

Lay the camcorder grain and terminal text over the speaker's own footage and over found stills for most of the clip, cutting to clean footage once or twice.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallSuits itSplitAvoidSideWorksDrawn overWorks

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: VHS terminal
Slice style ref: sref-ZB64VZ
VHS terminal. Grainy camcorder footage with green terminal text typing over it.
Pictures: before building, ask "Which pictures should I use: stills from your clip, Slice stock search, your own uploads, or images I make?" Treat any source the same: desaturate it most of the way, lift the contrast, soften it to tape resolution. With no picture at all, use a dark noisy gradient with a soft head-and-shoulders shape.
Palette: footage desaturated, plus #4BFF7A terminal green, #121512 dark, #E05A8A tape bleed pink (only as a chroma fringe), #D8D8D0 noise white for the camcorder readouts.
Line and fill: none. Footage and type only.
Texture: tape noise at 24fps, scan lines every 3px, a slow rolling brighter band with a small horizontal tear, a 2px pink channel offset on bright edges, dark vignette.
Light: the footage's own light. Terminal text glows softly.
Camera: handheld drift and tiny jitter. On a cut, a short tracking roll and a few torn lines, then it settles.
Motion: text types on one character at a time with a solid block cursor that blinks; each line arrives with the sentence it belongs to and stays. Glitches only on cuts.
Type: monospace pixel capitals; green with a soft glow for the story lines, noise white for the PLAY, timecode and date readouts.
The rule: footage looks like an old tape; words look like an old terminal.
Don'ts: no clean HD footage, no modern UI, no coloured type except the green, no constant glitching.
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

• VHS terminal. Grainy camcorder footage with green terminal text typing over it.
• Pictures: before building, ask "Which pictures should I use: stills from your clip, Slice stock search, your own uploads, or images I make?" Treat any source the same: desaturate it most of the way, lift the contrast, soften it to tape resolution. With no picture at all, use a dark noisy gradient with a soft head-and-shoulders shape.
• Palette: footage desaturated, plus #4BFF7A terminal green, #121512 dark, #E05A8A tape bleed pink (only as a chroma fringe), #D8D8D0 noise white for the camcorder readouts.
• Line and fill: none. Footage and type only.
• Texture: tape noise at 24fps, scan lines every 3px, a slow rolling brighter band with a small horizontal tear, a 2px pink channel offset on bright edges, dark vignette.
• Light: the footage's own light. Terminal text glows softly.
• Camera: handheld drift and tiny jitter. On a cut, a short tracking roll and a few torn lines, then it settles.
• Motion: text types on one character at a time with a solid block cursor that blinks; each line arrives with the sentence it belongs to and stays. Glitches only on cuts.
• Type: monospace pixel capitals; green with a soft glow for the story lines, noise white for the PLAY, timecode and date readouts.
• The rule: footage looks like an old tape; words look like an old terminal.
• Don'ts: no clean HD footage, no modern UI, no coloured type except the green, no constant glitching.

What it suits

Best for

Mysteries, tech nostalgia, memory and is-it-real questions that want an uncanny feel.

Avoid for

Bright upbeat promotions or children's content.

Content

Nostalgia, Personal story, Opinion, Explainer

Tone

Dreamy, Serious

Pace

Slow

Topics

mystery, internet, technology, memory, retro, conspiracy, ai, hacker, computer, 90s

Colours

#4BFF7A #121512 #E05A8A #D8D8D0

For AIs: this style as plain text.