Words and product on screen

Move the slider. The same line builds word by word at whatever pace you set, and the newest word lands blue before it settles to ink.

At 0.05 s the line is a blur; at 0.9 s it is a voice speaking slowly. Around 0.2 s it reads as it builds. That gap between words is the word stagger, and in a music-only film it is the edit itself: the type is the script.

Build words, never fade a block

A sentence faded in as one block reads as a slide. 27 of Skale's 29 films build copy per word or per letter; the two exceptions are a phrase-caption film and a CG teaser with no copy at all.

Mark the newest word. 15 of 29 Skale films land each new word in an accent or a pale grey, then settle it to ink within 0.13 to 0.3 seconds. The eye always knows where the sentence has got to.

Hold it long enough. After the last word, keep the line up 1.15 s (Skale's median); acclaimed title cards stay about 1.5 s in all. That is the hold.

Size and the slam

Statements in these films are small: about 5 % of frame height, around 54 px on a 1080 px frame. They caption the UI; they are not headlines. Body text never goes below about 20 px at 1080p.

Six of Skale's films use one slam word: a single word arriving huge (25-61 % of the frame), holding a few frames, then dropping into its sentence. Replit Slides holds its slam about 0.23 s, then drops it from 5× to 1× in one frame. Once per film is plenty.

The product as a character

Now the product itself. In most films the interface is rebuilt as vector, not screen-recorded (22 of 29 Skale films, 11 of 18 acclaimed), then cropped tight on the one control that matters. Eight acclaimed films use a macro crop: one button or field filling the frame.

Colour is saved for state. Raycast floods its dialog green only on save; Linear Agent shows colour only in issue icons.

The cursor

A cursor appears in 17 of 29 Skale films and 11 of 18 acclaimed ones. When it does, it must read at video size.

• Size: the oversized cursor, about 7 % of the frame's width (≈134 px on a 1920 frame), or a normal pointer inside a crop cut in until it reads (Cursor 2.0 cuts about 3×).
• Entry: from off-frame, on one decelerating glide of 0.4-0.9 s. The tip lands on the target.
• Press: shrink to 0.84 over 0.1 s, back over 0.22 s. The button dips with it.
• Exit: off the nearest edge, or as the carrier into the next shot. Never faded out in place.
• Cause, then effect. Nothing starts on its own; the click causes the next beat.

Typed prompts: read or recognise

How fast should a prompt type? It depends on its job.

A 33-character prompt meant to be read types for about 2.2 seconds, then holds 1.15-1.5 s. Keys land unevenly, slower at the ends, with a little extra time after spaces.

Human and agent, told apart

In an AI product, show who is speaking. Framer 3.0 types the human at 21 characters a second and the AI at 160 after a 0.9 s thinking state. Linear Agent gives the human a caret and resolves the agent's rows from blur 0.25 s apart. Claude Cowork sets the agent in a serif and the user in grey sans pills.

The agent's wait is either honest stepped state or it is cut past. Notion 3.0 steps a counter 1 → 61 while the agent works; Linear Agent simply cuts to the prompt already posted, the answer half a second later.

For every line of on-screen copy: build it per word at ~0.2 s (music)
or ~0.3 s (synced to voice), land the newest word in the accent and
settle it to ink within 0.3 s, hold 1.15-1.5 s after the last word.
Statements at ~5 % of frame height. No block fades.
Product: rebuild the UI as vector and crop to the control that matters.
Cursor ~7 % of frame width, enters from off-frame, presses (0.84 scale,
0.1 s down / 0.22 s up), exits off an edge. Prompts to be read type at
~15 chars/s. Show the agent's wait as stepped state, or cut past it.