Paraplex

Documentary Shorts

documentary-shorts · by Paraplex

Turn a script or a voiceover into a 3D documentary Short: a beat per sentence, each claim drawn as things that count, numbers exact, the documentary look, voice and captions. Load for an explainer, a Short or a Reel.

Documentary Shorts

A 30–60 second explainer in the manner of the 3D documentary channels: a voice tells a true story with numbers, and every sentence gets one picture that makes its claim visible — built from things, lit like clay, centered for a phone, the numbers drawn as things that count. Load it when someone hands you a script, a voiceover or a topic for a Short, a Reel or an explainer.

From the script to beats

  1. Split the script into sentences; each is a beat. With a voiceover, each beat starts on its first word (the caption layer's text lane holds the word times); without one, at a speaking pace of about 165 words a minute.
  2. Find each beat's claim: a number (how much, how many, what share, how many times), a contrast (before and after, the few and the many), an object (a pill, a bottle, a phone), or an event (a pilot stalls, a project is scrapped).
  3. Draw the claim, not the sentence:
    • A share of people or things — "one in four", "95 percent" — is add_unit_chart with things people or dots in a grid, the share as its highlight (100 dots, highlight 95).
    • A sum of money or a crowd is a pile: things paper or coins in a stack, a unit worth a round share of it (per), and a label that rides the pile and counts as it grows.
    • "N times" is pills in a column: 3.3 is three and a third.
    • A change over time is two piles side by side, each with its counter and its year.
    • A quote or a headline is add_media_frame torn-label; a photo as evidence a polaroid or torn-medium; a thought or a rule a post-it or a notebook page, written on as it is said.
    • An object is a 3D model or a primitive in matte white, the one part that matters in the accent.
  4. One picture per beat, in the middle of the frame. The next arrives as the last leaves — a cut on the word, or a 0.3 s crossfade — never two claims on screen at once.

Accuracy is the point

  • Use the script's numbers exactly. Never round one number into another, never invent one the script does not give — ask with ask_user or leave the picture numberless.
  • A chart's units are honest: say what a unit is worth in its label, and a part of a unit is that part of the value.
  • Label every chart in the words the voice uses, so the picture and the sentence agree.

The look

  • set_canvas 1080 × 1920 for a Short; everything the piece is about sits in the middle 60 % of the height — the captions own the lower third.
  • set_camera_shake style documentary for the whole piece; an impact when a number lands.
  • set_frame_rate stopMotion 12: the handmade stop-motion look of the references.
  • set_scene_look grain 6–10; a dark background; things in matte white; one accent, red (#e5322d), for the claim.
  • Camera: a slow push-in on each beat's picture (8–15 % over its length); a whip or a cut between chapters.

Sound and words

  • The voiceover first — the Voice panel reads the script with one of the account's voices and makes the captions from the voice's own times; or the person's own recording.
  • Captions two words at a time (the Documentary style), each on its word.
  • A quiet music bed under the voice, about −18 dB; a sound on each number landing — paper on paper, a coin, a click.

Timing

  • The hook is the first two seconds: the biggest number, drawn as a thing.
  • A picture lands on the word that carries its claim (the number), not on the sentence's first word; it holds at least as long as its words.
  • Count-ins (a pile growing, dots filling) last the phrase that says the number — one to two seconds — and the counter lands as the voice does.
  • End on the question the script ends on, over the first picture's chart, so the loop closes.

Paraplex recipes

Set the piece up: set_canvas 1080 × 1920; set_duration the voice's length plus a second; set_camera_shake style documentary; set_frame_rate stopMotion 12; set_scene_look grain 8; set_markers at each beat's first word.

A share of people: add_unit_chart things people, count 40, columns 8, highlight 10, highlightIn at the word "one", duration 1.2 — ten turn red one after another; a torn-label under it with the sentence's own words.

A sum that grows: add_unit_chart things paper, count 24, countIn from 0 at the number's word over 1.5 s, label with per (what a sheet is worth), prefix "

quot; or suffix " people"; the counter lands with the voice.

Doses: add_unit_chart things pills, value 3.3, countIn over 1 s beside the bottle (a model, or a cylinder in white).

Before and after: two add_unit_chart piles side by side (paper, the same per), each counted in on its own year's word, each with its label and a torn-label year under it.

Evidence: add_media_frame polaroid with the caption the voice says, writeAt on that word; or torn-medium; tilt a degree or two; assign_media the person's own picture onto its slot.

Captions: add_captions from the voiceover's layer, style documentary — two words at a time, each on its word; style spoken for a calm explainer — a line at a time, each word lit as it is said.