Design and production
How the piece holds up: visual identity, composition, readability on a small screen, carousel anatomy and the video production behind a Reel.
11 terms
Video script
A video script is the document defining what will be said and shown in a video before recording begins. In short content it is almost never read word for word, but writing beforehand changes the result anyway: it forces the hook to be decided, cuts rambling and reduces the number of takes. The arithmetic is simple, a script costs ten minutes and saves an hour of editing.
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Storyboard
A storyboard is the sequence of drawn frames showing how a video will look before filming begins. Each frame represents a shot, with the image, the line and any movement noted. It is the visual counterpart of the script: while the script decides what will be said, the storyboard decides what will be seen, and those are different things that often get confused.
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B-roll
B-roll is any footage that is not the main speech: the supporting shots layered over narration to illustrate, give context or simply break visual monotony. The name comes from the film era, when the A roll carried the main scene and the B roll carried complementary material. It is the cheapest retention tool that exists.
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Jump cut
A jump cut is a cut made within the same shot, removing a section and splicing what remains, which produces a visible jump in the image. In classical cinema it was considered a continuity error. In internet video it became the standard, because it solves the format's central problem: cutting every pause, breath and ramble to keep the pace high from start to finish.
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Talking head
A talking head is the video format where someone speaks directly to camera, framed from the chest up. It is the oldest and simplest format there is, and it still converts best for professional accounts, because it is the only one where the audience sees a face, hears a voice and bonds with a person rather than with a profile.
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Faceless content
Faceless content is any production that does not show the publisher's face: hands, screens, objects, animation, narration over footage. It works, and it grew because it solves two real problems, the discomfort of appearing and the difficulty of scaling production that depends on one person. The trade is that the bond has to come from somewhere else.
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Motion graphics
Motion graphics is graphic design in motion: animated text, shapes, icons and charts, with no characters and no narrative of its own. It exists to add movement where there is no filmed footage, to highlight information and to turn abstract data into something visible. In short content it solves the static screen problem, but it becomes expensive decoration when used without a function.
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Opening slide
The opening slide is the first frame of a carousel, the cover appearing in the feed. It is the highest leverage element of the whole piece: if it does not stop the thumb, the other nine slides do not exist. And it has a particularity almost nobody considers, it appears in two different contexts, full size in the feed and as a thumbnail in the profile grid.
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Turning slide
The turning slide is the middle frame of a carousel that renews interest before someone gives up. Every carousel has an abandonment curve, and it falls hardest between the third and fifth frame, once the cover's novelty is gone and the end is still far away. The turning slide exists to place something unexpected at exactly that point.
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CTA slide
The CTA slide is the last frame of a carousel, where the call to action goes. It carries a structural problem almost nobody faces: it is the least seen frame of the whole sequence, because only people who swiped all the way reach it. That changes what makes sense to put on it, and explains why carousels stacking five requests at the end do not convert.
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Slide advance rate
Slide advance rate is the proportion of people moving from one frame to the next inside a carousel. It is the video retention curve applied to a static format, and it serves the same purpose: pointing at the exact frame where the audience gave up. It is the metric that turns "my carousel underperformed" into a located, solvable problem.
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