Cards over talking-head footage

Designed cards, lower thirds and split layouts over a person speaking. Placement numbers are for 1920×1080 and 1080×1920; scale others.

Where the video sits

Picture-in-picture, 28 px from the edges (bottom-right: y = H − h − 28):

• Card zones: a lower third is the bottom 30%; a side panel the right 42% (landscape) or bottom 40% (portrait). Glass card slots: 48, 460, 660×540 landscape; 24, 1280, 1032×564 portrait.
• Portrait type is landscape × 1.3 (titles × 1.35, stats × 1.4); padding drops from 40–64 px to 24–36 px.
• Size a rectangle to its source's aspect: object-fit: cover crops a portrait source in a landscape box.

Timing

• Cards fade in over 0.4 s (power2.out) and out over 0.35 s (power2.in). Re-frame the video (0.5–0.7 s) only in a gap between cards; move it with transforms on a wrapper, not left/top/width/height.
• A static card goes dead after about 8 s; past about 15 s it needs a staged reveal. As a starting density: one card per 6–8 s under a minute, 8–12 s up to 3 min, 12–20 s up to 10 min.
• A transcript's last word can end past the media: clamp card ends and the root data-duration to the file's ffprobe length, or the render ends in black.

Pitfalls

• Lower-third, overlay and picture-in-picture scenes need a transparent root, or they hide the speaker.
• Glass over bright footage goes white on white: put a dark scrim behind it (about rgba(0,0,0,.55) fading out from the top, .72 at the bottom) and a dark glass base such as rgba(15,16,22,.78) with backdrop-filter: blur(22px).
• More than 3 timed elements on one track warns timeline_track_too_dense: give each chapter its own sub-composition.
• Footage with keyframes more than about 1 s apart freezes on seek: re-encode with -g <fps>.

Text behind the speaker (a caption between the footage and a cutout of the person): captions.md.