8. Dialogue close-up

When to use it: an Arabic speaking close-up in drama. Here, late at night at a kitchen table, a father tells his grown son, who sits off screen, that he sold the car to pay the university fees, as if it were nothing. The line is in Egyptian Arabic and is not quoted: its meaning is played as behaviour.

Methods:

• the Arabic default, Route 2 (decided): a sound-off speaking plate, followed by lip sync on the exact approved recording. The route is [best available, not yet validated] (see Speaking shots and lip sync → Route 2, the Arabic default);

• the delivery map. Option: use it when a hero line plays flat [single strong source]: one physical cause per phrase, timed from the take's word timestamps. Used here because this is the film's hero line, and a line said as if it were nothing can easily play flat.

The plate's length is the onset plus the spoken span plus a tail, rounded up. Here the approved take has its onset at 0.5 s, speech to 5.6 s, and a 1.4 s tail.

Shared rules: the rules every recipe keeps, and the five rules for speaking and singing shots (template and route, the camera during speech, the angle, the native reviewer, the placed voice): Video with Seedance → How to read a recipe.

References: 1 the father's sheet; 2 his identity close-up; 3 the kitchen's night master plate.

Settings: omni-reference · audio off · 7 s · 16:9.

Cost: 480p draft 21 cr (7 s × 3 cr) · 1080p finish 112 cr (7 s × 16 cr).

After the finish: the lip-sync pass on the exact take.

Budget: high risk (a hero speaking shot): 434 cr expected (7 s × 62), 861 cr ceiling (7 s × 123), the lip-sync pass included.

What to change, what to keep: Template C (Speaking shots and lip sync → Templates C, E and F).

Yours to rewrite:

• the beat times, from your approved take's word timestamps;

• the line's meaning, written as behaviour;

• the push, about a sixth of the camera's distance;

• the DELIVERY MAP's phrases and causes.

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

• "seen as his face growing by about a fifth";

• the mouth sentences in PERFORMANCE ("his mouth keeps moving through each stretch of speech, at an ordinary speaking size, the shapes never exaggerated. Between phrases, and before the first word and after the last, his lips are closed and at rest.");

• "DELIVERY MAP (direction only; never said aloud)";

• "Exactly one speaker".

SCENE CONTEXT: Late at night at a small kitchen table. A father tells his grown son, who sits off screen across the table, something he has decided not to make a fuss about.
ACTIVE REFERENCES: @image1 is THE FATHER: a man in his late fifties, heavy-set, with grey stubble, reading glasses pushed up on his head and a faded blue shirt for home; both hands around a small glass of tea on the table. This sheet gives identity and wardrobe and nothing else: the face and hair come from the close-up panel alone, the wardrobe and body from the full-body panels alone; the front panel's cropped head is never repeated; leave out its grey ground, layout and flat light. Match it exactly. @image2 is THE FATHER'S FACE: the identity close-up, used for the face alone; leave out its grey ground and its flat light. @image3 is THE KITCHEN: the table, the tiled wall and the single hanging bulb, as architecture and light only; the set holds exactly as pictured; it does not decide where the camera stands.
LOCATION MAP: Foreground, the table's near edge and the tea glass, low in the frame; midground, THE FATHER at frame centre, facing frame left toward his son; background, the tiled wall and a dark doorway on frame right. Live motion (a quiet room: one): steam rising from the tea.
FIRST FRAME AND BLOCKING (in motion from frame one): Medium close-up, chest up. THE FATHER is already turning the tea glass a quarter turn on the table, lips closed, his eyes on the glass.
FORMAT MODE: A single unbroken shot with no cuts of its own. Real time.
OPTICS: Medium close-up on a 29° diagonal field of view; the background soft, his face and mouth sharp and evenly lit; the lens holds steady.
CAMERA: A slider at his eye height, 2 m from him. One very slow push of 35 cm across the 7 s, travelling through both spoken stretches, seen as his face growing by about a fifth; it opens chest up, with the glass low in the frame and the doorway cut by the right edge, and arrives just tighter, his eyes and the glass in frame, drawing us into what he is not saying. His face stays within about 30° of the lens, his head steady in the frame.
ACTION / TIMELINE: 0–0.5 s his lips are closed and he looks at the glass; 0.5–2.3 s he speaks, low and patient, both hands resting still around the glass; 2.3–3.0 s a pause, his lips closed, as his eyes lift to his son; 3.0–5.6 s he speaks again, leaning in slightly, with one shrug of the shoulders; 5.6–7.0 s his lips are closed and his eyes drop back to the glass.
DELIVERY MAP (direction only; never said aloud): 0.5–1.3 s he begins as if it were nothing, a shrug in the breath; 1.3–2.3 s his jaw sets on the second phrase; 3.0–4.2 s his breath catches before he goes on; 4.2–5.6 s his voice drops and softens, his eyes on his son.
PERFORMANCE — THE FATHER: He wants his son to stop worrying and accept it; the obstacle is the son's pride; his tactic is to make it small, so he shrugs it off, finishes turning the glass before he speaks, then lets his hands rest. When he looks up, he checks his son's eyes to see whether it has landed. One slow, late blink after the pause. A tired warmth, never sentimental. He talks in a quiet, everyday voice; his mouth keeps moving through each stretch of speech, at an ordinary speaking size, the shapes never exaggerated. Between phrases, and before the first word and after the last, his lips are closed and at rest.
TEXTURE: Grey stubble and the creases of his forehead; a chipped saucer under the tea glass; worn tiles with dark grout; the frame sits off-centre, and the doorway falls into darkness past 3 m.
LIGHTING: One bare 2700 K bulb hanging just in front of him, slightly to frame left, 4:1; the pale tabletop bounces a soft fill up into his eyes and mouth, so both stay lit; the doorway two stops darker. No surface lights itself.
STYLE: A filmic drama look: lifted warm blacks that keep their detail, a soft roll-off in the highlights, muted colour with tungsten skin, the room's worn surfaces readable in the shadows; light seen only where it lands, as highlights and reflections on real surfaces.
POSITIVE LOCKS: Exactly one speaker and one person in frame. His hands stay low on the glass, below his chin. No subtitles and no on-screen text.

This look line is not the clean default: the film chose it in its treatment and pastes it into every prompt.

Two people in frame: if the son sits in frame and the father touches his hand, the scene becomes a silent moving master plus one plate per speaker (see Speaking shots and lip sync → Harder speaking shots).

Check the take

On the 480p draft with the sound off, step through the frames: the mouth opens within about 5 frames of each spoken stretch's start, rests closed in the pause, and closes after the last word, while the camera keeps moving. After lip sync, the line must sit within one frame of the recording, and the lips are checked at full size on b, m, f and w sounds and at the widest point of the move (see Speaking shots and lip sync → Checks on the 1080p result).

Common failure and fix: generic, mushy lips after lip sync, because the plate's mouth was closed or murmuring. Rewrite the beats so the mouth moves through every spoken stretch. If the lips warp at the widest point of the move, make the push slower and keep it moving; never lock the camera by default.

Sources

• @chip_frames, Welcome to the Team: the delivery map.

• @adilinthewildtempo (blog): the mapping of each reference to one panel's job in the character role lines.

• Tigran Mutafyan and the Higgsfield studio's acting work: acting as a task.