9. Presenter line

When to use it: a short commercial line to a friend or the lens. Here, a young woman in a café tells her friend some good news for Qaffa Mobile, an invented telecom brand. The line (Saudi Arabic: she tells her friend her connection never drops now, even here) is not quoted, and it stays a draft until the native reviewer passes it.

Methods: the Arabic default, Route 2 (decided), with a very slow push through the words.

The approved take: onset 0.6 s, speech to 5.1 s, tail 0.9 s.

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 presenter's sheet; 2 her identity close-up; 3 the Riyadh café's master plate.

Settings: omni-reference · audio off · 6 s · 9:16.

Cost: 480p draft 18 cr (6 s × 3 cr) · 1080p finish 96 cr (6 s × 16 cr).

After the finish: the lip-sync pass.

Budget: high risk (a speaking shot): 372 cr expected (6 s × 62), 738 cr ceiling (6 s × 123).

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 push, sized to the camera's distance (here 20 cm at 1.2 m);

• the live motions (three here, because a busy café has them).

Keep word for word: what recipe 8 keeps (Video with Seedance → 8. Dialogue close-up), plus "The people behind her are silent and walk past without stopping."

SCENE CONTEXT: Afternoon in a busy café. A young woman at a window table tells her friend, who sits just off screen to the right, a small piece of good news.
ACTIVE REFERENCES: @image1 is LAYAN: a woman in her late 20s with an oval face, in a black abaya with a soft beige shayla and small gold earrings; both hands resting together on the table, out of frame. 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 LAYAN'S FACE: the identity close-up, used for the face alone. @image3 is THE CAFÉ: the window table, the wooden counter, the plants and the street beyond the glass, as architecture and light only; the set holds exactly as pictured; it does not decide where the camera stands.
LOCATION MAP: Foreground, empty; midground, LAYAN at frame centre, turned a quarter toward frame right; background, soft, the counter on frame left and the window on frame right. Live motion: two customers pass behind her at the counter; the barista's steam wand puffs; cars pass outside the window from right to left.
FIRST FRAME AND BLOCKING (in motion from frame one): Medium close-up. LAYAN is already turning back from the window toward her friend, lips closed, eyebrows rising.
FORMAT MODE: A single unbroken shot with no cuts of its own. Real time.
OPTICS: Medium close-up on a 47° diagonal field of view; the café soft behind her; her mouth clear and evenly lit; the lens holds steady.
CAMERA: A slider at her eye height, 1.2 m from her. As she turns back to her friend, one very slow push of 20 cm across the 6 s, travelling through the line, seen as her face growing by about a fifth; it opens with her at frame centre and the window soft at the right edge, and arrives with her face square to the lens on the last word, the café softening behind her. Her face stays within about 30° of the lens.
ACTION / TIMELINE: 0–0.6 s her lips are closed as she turns to her friend; 0.6–2.1 s she speaks, bright and a little smug; 2.1–2.6 s a pause, her lips closed, as she glances down at her phone on the table; 2.6–5.1 s she speaks again, looking back up, with one small nod; 5.1–6.0 s her lips are closed and she sits back with a satisfied breath.
PERFORMANCE — LAYAN: She wants her friend to be impressed without it sounding like bragging; her tactic is to say it lightly and watch for the reaction. Her eyes stay on her friend except for the glance down. One quick, uneven double blink after the nod. Pleased, never a grin. She talks in a bright, everyday voice; her 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, her lips are closed and at rest.
TEXTURE: A worn wooden tabletop with faint rings; the scuffed edge of the counter, soft behind her.
LIGHTING: A single soft key from the window on frame right, 5600 K, 2:1; a warm 3000 K practical over the counter behind her; exposed for her face, the window held just below clipping. No surface lights itself.
STYLE: A bright, modern commercial look: clean blacks, warm neutral colour, soft contrast, true skin texture; light seen only where it lands, as highlights and reflections on real surfaces.
POSITIVE LOCKS: Exactly one speaker. The people behind her are silent and walk past without stopping. Her hands stay out of frame. No subtitles and no on-screen text.

Check the take

The same sound-off draft check as recipe 8. Also check that the passers-by keep moving, never stopping or mouthing words, and that the push is visible: her face should grow by about a fifth over the window.

Common failure and fix: the shot reads stiff and the line flat. Keep a breathing frame or a very slow push running through the words, sized so it can be seen; for a hero line, the plan may name the delivery map.

Sources

• @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.