“What if…” simulation

​

What the app does with it

• No characters: no cast, no dialogue. You see an anonymous crowd, vehicles and buildings. If the event is lived by the viewer (“what if you were the only real human?”), the scene is seen through their eyes.
• Chained moments: each shot is the continuation of the previous one or a new shot. The image of a continuation is a retouch of the previous one, so the same place changes under the camera.
• All the shots are animated, the sound is the ambience of the clips (crowd, wind, sirens). No voice by default.
• Default length: 45 s, in a single part. Default style: isometric.
• Each moment moves the story forward: the premise, the first sign, what follows, the tipping point, the outcome that answers the question. Never the same proof replayed elsewhere.
• The numbers quoted (distances, energy, time) are written to stay plausible and consistent with each other.

​

The form that works

What if [extraordinary event] [hit / happened to] [real place] [when or under what conditions]?

What if a 300 ft wave hit Manhattan at rush hour?
What if every red light in Los Angeles turned green at the same time?
What if the Moon were twice as close to Earth for one night?

​

The “Setting” field

Miami Beach on a summer afternoon: the beach, the pier, the seafront towers

​

Before / after

A disaster in a city, with a lot of destruction, disaster movie style.

What if the dinosaur asteroid hit Florida today? A summer afternoon, a full beach, impact 25 miles offshore.

​

Common mistakes

• Naming heroes: the simulation has no characters. Write the event, not a family suffering it.
• Several events: one phenomenon per video. Two disasters steal each other’s spotlight.
• An invented or vague place: “a big city” gives a generic setting. Pick a real place.
• Writing text to display: the sentences and numbers on screen come from the app, not from your prompt. For counters, see overlays.
• Asking for a voice: the format is silent by default, carried by the sound effects.

​

Settings that go with it

• Length: 45 s by default, a single part. Test short before lengthening.
• On-screen sentence on each moment: a short sentence in the middle of the image explains each moment, with the episode’s question as the title at the start.
• Music: off by default, volume set to come through over the sound effects if you turn it on.
• Subtitles: off by default.
• Series: a “What if…” series hosts its episodes in this tool. See creating a series.

​

Before launching