Vintage Engraving Collage — our demo

One example among many. Don't reuse its story, arc, shots, props or timings.

Demo: The Inverted Jenny 《倒置的珍妮》 (52.0 s) · vintage-collage.mp4 · source in demo/

In May 1918 the United States opened its airmail service and issued a 24-cent stamp: a blue Curtiss Jenny biplane in a red frame. The stamp was printed in two passes, red first, then blue. On one sheet the blue went on upside down. A collector, William T. Robey, bought that whole sheet on 14 May 1918 for $24 and sold it a week later for $15,000. The sheet was cut up and sold stamp by stamp; in 2023 a single one sold for $2,006,000 with the buyer's premium. Some of the hundred were lost, some stolen; number 66 vanished in 1955 and has never been found. An English narrator (Kokoro bm_george), Chinese and English subtitles. Facts and sources: demo/FACTS.md.

Story & structure

Logline: one sheet of paper went into the press the wrong way round; it went from $24 to two million a stamp, and one of the hundred is still missing.

Arc: May sky assembled from torn papers, a halftone news clipping and ransom letters (AIR MAIL); an engraved biplane flies in and the stamp assembles around it → through the stamp's oval into the press: red pass, blue pass → a near-silence; the next sheet turns 180° on the table before the blue pass; every plane prints upside down; close on one inverted stamp → whip pan to the post office: a black-paper silhouette, the sheet slides in, the receipt types out 100 × 24¢ = $24.00; a week later $24.00 is struck out and $15,000 lands in ransom letters → scissors cut the sheet, a hundred stamps scatter → a data engraving grows: 24¢ in 1918 against $2,006,000 in 2023, ≈ 8,360,000 × → an album page fills, LOST, LOST, STOLEN; slot 66 stays empty, "stolen 1955" types out → through the empty slot back into the sky, the inverted plane flies off past the sun; title and sign-off.

Native moves spent, each a step further than the last: assemble (sky, stamp), ransom and typewriter (AIR MAIL, receipt, $15,000, 1955), through the hole (the oval, then slot 66, a rhyme), turn the sheet (180° on the table, the hinge move at its largest), cut it out (scissors, a hundred pieces), data engraving (the tower).

Shots

# Time Shot Camera / transition Native move / note
1 0.0–2.3 Teal, ochre, cream strip, mustard sun and three paper clouds slide in; a halftone clipping of the Polo Field, 15 May 1918, slaps in wide, still assemble; halftone
2 2.0–5.9 AIR MAIL in ransom letters, one per eighth note; the engraved biplane (cut from the stamp's blue plate) flies in on a dashed route, bobbing on twos wide, slow follow ransom letters; cut-out flight
3 5.25–10.0 The perforated stamp (paper, red plate, the sky lines of the blue plate) slides in under the plane, which lands in the oval; typed tags blue plane and red frame with leader lines push to the stamp assemble
4 10.0–10.95 The plane takes off; the camera dives into the empty oval, where the press already is through the oval through the hole
5 10.95–14.7 Pull back from the press to the sheet; a roller sweeps: PASS 1 — RED, frames appear cell by cell; PASS 2 — BLUE pull back to wide printing performed with paper
6 14.7–15.6 A second sheet, already red, slides in; near-silence wide the pause before the turn
7 15.6–18.7 The sheet turns 180° flat on the table, the blue pass, the sheet turns back: every plane upside down wide, slight push turn the sheet
8 18.7–21.45 One inverted stamp fills the frame, held push to a close-up verdict hold ≥ 2 s
9 21.45–21.85 Whip pan left, a paper seam between the scenes whip pan
10 21.85–27.7 Black-paper silhouette in a boater hat, typed name slips; the sheet slides in; the receipt types out medium, pan to the sheet silhouette (not a likeness of anyone); typewriter
11 27.7–31.0 "+ 1 week" slip; $24.00 struck through in red; $15,000 in ransom letters push in ransom letters
12 31.0–33.0 Scissors cut down the middle, then across hard cut, match on the sheet cut it out
13 33.0–35.0 A hundred stamps scatter, turning over; one flies up out of frame pull back, then tilt up scatter
14 35.0–38.0 The stamp lands on a line with almost no height (1918 · 24¢); an engraved tower grows beside it with a stamp on top match on action, then a rise along the tower data engraving
15 38.0–40.55 The whole comparison: 1918 · 24¢ / 2023 · one stamp / $2,006,000 / ≈ 8,360,000 × pull back to wide, held 2.55 s comparison held
16 40.55–43.3 Album page; 99 stamps drop into their slots in rhythm; LOST, LOST, STOLEN slips top view, slight tilt rhythm
17 43.3–46.3 Slot 66, numbered in pencil; "stolen 1955" types out push to the slot typewriter
18 46.3–47.1 The camera enters the empty slot, the sky is inside through the slot through the hole (rhymes with 4)
19 47.1–52.0 The inverted plane flies right to left past the sun and out; title slips; from 49.55 the style name and sign-off slips wide, slow drift end card

Voice and subtitles

Ten lines (demo/vo/lines.json), Kokoro bm_george at speed 0.92–0.95, about 2.55 words a second; numbers spelled out in the voice text and written as digits in the subtitles; every clip passes asr_check.py. Start times are VO in demo/src/timeline.py; thirteen cues, three lines split in two at the word timings.

# Start English (spoken) 中文
1 0.7 May 1918. America is about to fly the mail. 1918 年 5 月，美國要開始用飛機送信了。
2 5.6 The new stamp: a blue plane, in a red frame. 為此發行的新郵票：紅框裡，一架藍色飛機。
3 10.4 Every sheet goes through the press twice. / Red first, then blue. 每張紙都要過兩次印刷機。／先印紅，再印藍。
4 15.6 But on one sheet, the blue went on upside down. 可有一張紙，藍色印反了。
5 21.9 A collector named William Robey bought it. / 100 stamps, $24. 集郵的威廉·羅比買下了它。／100 枚，24 美元。
6 27.7 A week later, he sold it for $15,000. 一週後，他以 15,000 美元轉手。
7 31.3 The sheet was cut up, and the planes flew apart. 整版被剪開，飛機各奔東西。
8 35.0 In 2023, a single one sold for just over $2 million. 2023 年，單單一枚就賣出 200 多萬美元。
9 40.6 Some were lost. Some were stolen. 有的遺失了，有的被偷了。
10 43.3 Number 66 vanished in 1955, / and has never been found. 第 66 號在 1955 年失蹤，／至今下落不明。

Subtitles are baked slips drawn by the page at the bottom left (black newsprint slip, Chinese 40 px; cream typewriter slip, English 30 px, typing out) and exported to vintage-collage.srt from the same table.

Score structure

120 BPM, a bar every 2 s; F major with a D minor turn.

Section Time Palette Notes
Sky and stamp 0–10 tuba staccato and pizzicato violins (oom-pah), a xylophone note per AIR MAIL letter, harp run + glockenspiel when the stamp lands
Press 10–14.7 woodblock on every beat like the machine, quieter oom-pah, clarinet arpeggio roller rumble
Near-silence 14.7–15.6 nothing paper only
Upside down 15.6–21.4 D minor: low bassoon, pizzicato falling by semitones, two timpani strokes on the turns, glockenspiel + harp on the close-up
Post office 21.4–31 walking bassoon, pizzicato off-beats; seven rising xylophone notes for $15,000, glockenspiel + triangle keys, carriage bell, red pen
Cut and scatter 31–35 spiccato violins in eighths; harp glissando + suspended cymbal on the scatter snips, a hundred flutters
Tower 35–40.5 glockenspiel climbing a step at a time over a timpani roll; horn and trombone at the top scrape of the growing chart
Album 40.5–43.3 pizzicato eighths with the drops
Ending 43.3–52 glockenspiel music box; an F major chord on the title (harp, glockenspiel, contrabass pizzicato, horn); a last harp and glockenspiel under the sign-off

Mix (demo/mix.py): the voice is compressed and set by RMS about 10 dB over the music; while it speaks the music ducks 4 dB and its 300 Hz–4 kHz band another 6 dB. Peaks are limited to about 11 dB over the RMS before the master, so mux.sh lands at −14 LUFS with true peak below −1 dB.

Palette & props

End card

The last shot's collage: The Inverted Jenny (IM FELL English italic on a black slip) and 倒置的珍妮 (Noto Serif SC Black on a cream slip) top left from 47.15 s; from 49.55 s three slips at the bottom right: Vintage Engraving Collage in small caps on newsprint, 復古版畫拼貼 on mustard, and LemoLab × Claude Opus 5.5 in Courier Prime Bold on a black slip (about 36 px). The inverted plane flies out of frame; held to 52.0 s. The "LemoLab × Claude Opus 5.5" sign-off belongs to this library's demo only; a user's film carries no LemoLab credit and no copy of this card.

Build notes

demo/
  build.sh        one command: archive images and fonts (if missing) → voice (if missing) + speech check → timeline → parts → events → picture → mix → master → subtitles → readcheck → poster, styleframe
  index.html      render(t): seven scenes (A sky, B press, C post office, D scissors, E tower, F album, G sky) with their own cameras, the oval / whip / slot transitions, subtitles, EV, TEXTS
  src/bake.py     old paper, torn colour papers, palette, save()
  src/bake2.py    stamp plates, plane cut-out, halftone, ransom letters, slips, subtitle slips, silhouette, scissors, press, roller, sheet, album, tower, end slips
  src/collage_lib.py   noise, paper texture, torn edges, masks, cut-out with margin, engrave()
  src/timeline.py voice starts and subtitle cues → timeline.json, src/cues.json
  mix.py          voice + foley + score from events.json and timeline.json → out/mix.wav
  make_fonts.py   IM FELL, Courier Prime, Noto Serif SC subsets (OFL)
  vo/lines.json   the voice script (Kokoro bm_george; asr overrides for the numbers)
  SOURCES.jsonl   the archive images: file, download URL, Commons page, licence
  FACTS.md        every fact in the film with its source
  CREDITS