REF-3917Source onlineBlueprint rev 01
How a Cookiecutter Shark Takes a Circular Bite
A 28-second 3D anatomy explainer tracks a tiny shark's bite from tooth contact to the circular wound it leaves.
Cut timeline · 3 shots00:28
00:0000:0500:1000:1500:2000:25
Field notes / why it works
The first frame puts the small shark against the whale, and narration starts at 0:00, making the physical puzzle immediate. A long 3D close-up shows the teeth and rotation in spoken order through 14.4 seconds, with pale direction chevrons around 9–11 seconds; the circular wound then provides a clear visual payoff before the wider survival explanation.
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Plate 01 / The format in one breath
A tiny protagonist acts on something much larger. The camera starts at the contact point, follows the mechanism in extreme close-up, then widens to show the clean result and explain why the action matters. The promise arrives immediately in speech and picture: the viewer will see how an unlikely interaction works.
Why it works
- At 0:00 the small shark is already at the whale; the narration begins with the bite, so there is no preamble.
- From 1.5–14.4 s the animation shows upper teeth, lower teeth, rotation, and the cut in the same order as the narration. The moving demonstration carries a 10.5 s shot without frequent cuts.
- At about 14.4–19 s the circular wound gives a visible answer; the final eight seconds explain the animal's strategy. The comments chiefly react to the surprising single-bite result.
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Plate 02 / Format card
| Platform · aspect · length | YouTube Short · 9:16 · 360 × 640 source · 29.97 fps · 27.7 s |
| Pace | 3 measured shots; 2 definite cuts, or 4.3 cuts/min; one uncertain change at 16.8 s makes an upper estimate of 6.5 cuts/min. Mean shot 9.24 s. Continuous 3D action supplies motion within shots. |
| Script | 76 spoken words · 169 wpm overall, 190 wpm while speaking · 4 sentences, 19 words each · no question |
| Voice | One brisk, animated, medium-register explainer narrator; no person on camera |
| On screen | Entirely stylized underwater 3D animation: mouth/teeth macro, whale-skin interaction, wound and departure |
| Captions | White bold sans serif, roughly 24–28 px at 360 px width, thin black shadow/outline, lower-middle, short phrase chunks, timed to speech |
| Sound | Near-continuous music-like tonal bed detected under narration; exact instrumentation and effects are unverified. −11.2 LUFS measured integrated, +0.5 dBFS measured true peak. |
| Structure | Contact and tool → twist and circular extraction → mark left behind → survival explanation; no CTA |
Recipe / REF-3917 / rev 01
1,509 chars
Toolkit for this film: Blender for 3D; ElevenLabs or a recorded voice; Remotion or any video editor. Where the steps below name a single tool, use the toolkit instead.
Create a new 28-second, 9:16, 1080×1920, 30 fps narrated explainer for {{PRODUCT}} or {{TOPIC}}. Use Remotion for captions and compositing; render original 3D or layered illustrated assets for {{SMALL_ACTOR}}, {{LARGE_TARGET}}, {{PART_A}}, {{PART_B}}, and {{VISIBLE_RESULT}}. Ground each claim in {{SOURCE_NOTES}}. Open mid-action at 0:00 with an extreme size mismatch and a close camera push toward the contact point. From 0:00–0:04 show {{PART_A}} engaging; from 0:04–0:08 cut to {{PART_B}}; from 0:08–0:14 animate {{WHOLE_BODY_MOTION}} and briefly show pale blue directional chevrons. At 0:14–0:20 hold on {{VISIBLE_RESULT}}, then widen through 0:28 to reveal the scale relationship and explain {{WHY_IT_MATTERS}}. Write 70–80 original spoken words, with no greeting or CTA. Use a curious medium-register narrator at about 185–190 wpm while speaking, with short pauses before the turn and final reason. Keep a deep-blue background, muted subject colors, and one warm orange-pink focal area. Add white Montserrat ExtraBold captions in 2–5 word chunks at the lower middle with a dark shadow; avoid covering the mechanism. Use hard cuts between the three phases and continuous movement within each. Add a restrained low tonal bed under speech, optional soft whoosh on the turn, and export around −13 LUFS with true peak at or below −1 dBFS.