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The Master Guide / 07 Video with Seedance · Ad-format recipes

16. Unboxing

An unboxing told by hands only, with an acting task and no other brand in frame. Here, two hands open a box of Ondi earbuds, an invented brand, as if they had waited for them.

When to use it: an unboxing told by hands only, with an acting task and no other brand in frame. Here, two hands open a box of Ondi earbuds, an invented brand, as if they had waited for them.

Methods:

Shared rules: the rules every recipe keeps, and the notes on ad-format recipes: Video with Seedance → How to read a recipe.

References: 1 the client's photo of the closed box; 2 the client's photo of the open case; 3 the hand model's sheet; 4 the desk's morning master plate.

Settings: omni-reference · 8 s · 9:16 · audio on.

Cost: 480p draft 24 cr (8 s × 3 cr) · 1080p finish 128 cr (8 s × 16 cr).

Budget: high risk (two hands on a product, packaging physics): 496 cr expected (8 s × 62), 984 cr ceiling (8 s × 123).

What to change, what to keep: Template A (Video with Seedance → Templates A, B and D).

Yours to rewrite:

  • the product and its packaging;

  • the order of the reveals;

  • the hands' task;

  • the top-down descent.

Keep word for word: the shared wording (Video with Seedance → How to read a recipe), plus:

  • the hands' role line ("This sheet gives the hands and cuffs and nothing else");

  • "Exactly two hands, with five fingers each";

  • "No other brand anywhere".

SCENE CONTEXT: A small wooden desk in morning light. Two hands open a new box of wireless earbuds slowly, the way you open something you have been waiting for.
ACTIVE REFERENCES: @image1 is THE BOX, closed: its exact shape, the matte white card and the embossed shape on the lid; follow the picture; it is not a start frame. @image2 is THE CASE, open: the charging case with the two earbuds inside it, their exact shape and colour; follow the picture. @image3 is THE HANDS: a young man's hands, short nails, a thin braided cord bracelet on the left wrist, the cuffs of a navy sweatshirt. This sheet gives the hands and cuffs and nothing else; leave out its grey ground and its flat light. @image4 is THE DESK: the wooden desktop and the window, as materials and light only; it does not decide where the camera stands.
LOCATION MAP: Foreground, the desk's front edge; midground, THE BOX at frame centre; background, a plain mug and a blank notebook, soft. Live motion (a quiet room: one): steam rising from the mug.
FIRST FRAME AND BLOCKING (in motion from frame one): Top-down close-up. Both thumbs are already pressing up under the edge of the lid, the fingers spread along its sides.
FORMAT MODE: A single unbroken shot with no cuts of its own. Real time.
OPTICS: Top-down close-up on a 47° diagonal field of view; the box sharp; the lens holds steady.
CAMERA: A top-down arm at 60 cm. One slow descent of 15 cm across the 8 s, travelling straight down; it opens on the closed box and arrives on the open case filling the frame: the reveal.
ACTION / TIMELINE: From the first frame the thumbs ease the lid up against the air trapped in the box, which slows it; by about 2 s the lid comes free and the right hand puts it aside on frame right; by about 3.5 s the left hand folds back one sheet of tissue; by about 5 s the right thumb lifts the case out and opens it with one press; at 8 s the case sits open in the left palm, both earbuds facing the lens.
PERFORMANCE — THE HANDS: He wants it to last: the hands slow down just before each reveal, a half-second pause with the thumb on the lid, then go on.
PHYSICS: The lid rises slowly as the trapped air lets it go; the tissue is thin and springs back a little; the case's hinge opens once and stays open. Exactly two hands, with five fingers each.
TEXTURE: The grain of the desk and one old ring stain; fine paper fibres where the tissue folds; the box, the case and the earbuds pristine, with no fingerprint, scuff or sign of use; the frame sits off-centre, the mug soft at the top edge.
LIGHTING: Soft 5000 K window light from above the frame's top edge, 2:1; a faint warm bounce off the desk. No surface lights itself.
AUDIO: Sound effects only. A quiet room; 0.5 s card sliding against card as the lid lifts; 2.0 s the lid put down; 3.5 s a rustle of tissue; 5.0 s the click of the case. No music and no voices. Nothing rises, swooshes, stings or fades at the opening, at a cut, or as the clip closes. No subtitles and no on-screen text.
STYLE: A clean, natural product look, with real wear on the desk: soft contrast, true whites, warm wood; light seen only where it lands, as highlights and reflections on real surfaces.
POSITIVE LOCKS: Exactly one box, one case and two earbuds. No other brand anywhere: the mug and the notebook are plain. The embossed shape on the box stays as in @image1. The take fails if a hand gains a finger or the case appears before the lid is off.

Check the take

The hands are a hard stop: count the fingers in every frame of the window at full size, and check each touch point on the box and case. Check the order: the case never appears before the lid is off.

Common failure and fix: extra hands or fingers. Keep at most two named hand roles, with a count lock, and give any contact that must read its own insert.

Sources

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