Free Video Effect
Headline Wall Effect: Paper Headlines Stick to the Wall Behind You
Newspaper clippings and paper notes with headlines stick to the wall behind you, one after another.
Claude Code · Opus 5.59:16Medium
- Run the setup once
- Paste the prompt, fill in the [brackets]
- Approve the preview, get your MP4
New to Claude Code? Start with the beginner guide →
Want all 17 at once? Get the full pack →
The prompt
effects/headline_wall.py: add a "Headline Wall" effect between [START S] and [END S].
- Turn these headlines into paper notes:
"[HEADLINE 1]", "[HEADLINE 2]", "[HEADLINE 3]", "[HEADLINE 4]", "[HEADLINE 5]", "[HEADLINE 6]", "[HEADLINE 7]", "[HEADLINE 8]"
- Give every note a different style: a newspaper clipping (serif headline + small column text),
a cream sticky note (handwritten italic serif), a white card (a small label + a headline).
Paper texture, a soft shadow and a random angle of ±8°.
- The notes go on the wall (BEHIND the person mask) and fill the area behind my face
and body completely, but never cover me.
- Each note "sticks" on 120 ms after the previous one: scale 1.15→1, its angle settles slightly,
and its shadow tightens as it lands (the feeling of paper touching the wall).
- Overall the image is slightly warm-toned and contrasty.Fill in the brackets
| Placeholder | What to put there | Example |
|---|---|---|
[START S] / [END S] | Where the effect starts and ends, in seconds from the start of input.mp4. | 2.4 / 7.0 |
[HEADLINE 1] – [HEADLINE 8] | The text on each of the eight notes. Use real headlines quoted as published, or lines that are clearly your own words. | Is AI editing worth it? |
About Headline Wall
Headline Wall is a talking-head video effect that sticks eight paper notes (newspaper clippings, cream notepaper and white cards) to the wall behind you, 120 ms apart, until they cover the wall behind your head and body without covering you. Run the one-time setup, then paste the prompt below into Claude Code with Opus 5.5 and fill in your headlines.
Use it when: You talk about something everyone is discussing, or set out the news and context around your topic.
What the Headline Wall effect does
Headline Wall covers the wall behind you with paper headlines, one at a time. Eight notes land 120 ms apart, so the wall fills in about a second. Each takes one of three paper styles: a newspaper clipping with a serif headline over small columns of text, a cream sheet set in handwritten-style italic serif, or a white card with a small label above the headline. Every note has paper texture, a light shadow and its own tilt of up to 8° either way.
The landing is what makes it feel physical. Each note arrives at 115% of its size and settles to 100% while its angle eases into place, and its shadow tightens for a moment, the way paper does when it meets a wall. All of the notes sit behind your person mask, so they fill the space behind your head and body without crossing you. A slightly warm, contrasty grade over the whole frame ties paper and skin together.
When it works and when it hurts
It fits the part of a video where you set the scene: “everyone is talking about this”, or “here is what the coverage says”. A wall of headlines shows the size of a conversation faster than you could read them out.
It hurts when the headlines are not real. The clipping style looks like evidence, so a wall of invented press coverage misleads people even if it is on screen briefly. Use headlines that were actually published, or write lines that are plainly your own. It also hurts when you expect viewers to read every note. Much of each one is hidden behind you and the wall is busy, so treat it as atmosphere and say the headline that matters out loud.
How Claude builds it
Claude first draws each of the eight notes as a transparent image: paper, texture, type and shadow. The setup’s helper module can render HTML and CSS to PNG with Playwright, which suits a typographic layout like a newspaper clipping; plainer notes can be drawn directly with Pillow.
Then it plans the wall. Each note gets a position, a tilt and a start time, with positions chosen to cover the area behind your face and body. For every frame, the script works out each note’s current scale, angle and shadow from its landing animation, then stacks the frame in order: your original footage, the notes, and you on top through the person mask. The warm grade goes on the finished frame, and ffmpeg writes the result with your audio unchanged.
Make it yours
The paper styles are the easiest thing to change. Ask for all clippings for a serious news tone, or all cream notes for something more personal; the three-way mix is a taste call. A slower stagger of 200–300 ms gives viewers a beat per note, while a faster one feels like a pile-up. If you re-render often, ask Claude to fix the random seed so every note lands in the same place each time. And if your footage is already warm, tell Claude to leave the grade out.
Questions
Can I use headlines about me or my product?
Only if they were actually published, and quote them as they ran. If you want the look without real coverage, write lines that are clearly in your own voice: questions people ask you, opinions, notes to yourself. Presenting invented headlines as press coverage misleads viewers, even inside a stylised effect.
Why exactly eight headlines?
Eight notes are enough to fill the wall behind a person in a vertical frame, which is what the prompt asks for. You can use fewer, but the wall may not cover the whole area behind your head and body. More notes overlap more deeply, so each headline shows less.
Does it replace my whole background?
Not necessarily. The prompt asks for the notes to cover the area behind your face and body, so parts of your room can still show near the edges of the frame. If you want the wall to fill the entire background, say so and Claude will spread the notes wider or add more.
Do I have to design the notes myself?
No. The prompt names three paper styles and Claude draws them in code, with texture, a soft shadow and a random tilt. If you want a particular newspaper font or note colour, describe it in plain words, or add the shared style block from the setup page.
Step by step
Run the setup once
Open the folder that holds input.mp4 in Claude Code, choose Opus 5.5 and paste the setup prompt. The person mask it cuts for every frame is what lets the notes sit behind you.
Collect eight headlines
Gather real headlines from articles you could link to and copy them exactly, or write short lines of your own and make it obvious they are yours. Four to eight words each keeps them legible.
Paste and fill in the prompt
Copy the Headline Wall prompt, fill in your start and end seconds and the eight headlines, and send it.
Check the edges
Watch the notes land and look closely at your hair and shoulders. If a note shows through at a particular second, give Claude that time and ask it to fix only that range. Ask for a 540×960 preview first if you want a quicker look.
You need: Setup prompt (run once) · Person mask · 8 headlines
Tips
- Use only real headlines, quoted as they were published, or clearly label invented lines as your own. Never make up press coverage of yourself or your product: a wall of fake headlines misleads viewers even if it is on screen for two seconds.
- Start the effect on the phrase that introduces the topic, such as 'everyone is talking about this', so the wall builds while you set the scene.
- Short headlines survive being partly hidden behind you. Mixing lengths (a long clipping beside a three-word card) looks more like a real pinboard; that part is taste.
- If your room is already warm or contrasty, ask Claude to skip or soften the final grade.
If it goes wrong
Notes show through your hair or flicker around your shoulders.
That is the mask edge, not the notes. Tell Claude the second where it happens and ask for stronger temporal smoothing of the mask there plus a 1 px wider edge, re-rendering only that range.
The notes appear all at once or feel like a slideshow.
Check that each note has its own start time 120 ms after the last, and that the 1.15→1 scale and the shadow tightening are applied on landing. Those contact cues are what make the paper feel stuck on.
The headlines are unreadable.
Ask for fewer words per note and larger type on the clipping and card styles. Narrowing the tilt from ±8° to ±5° also helps the text read.
What it does not do
- The wall is a flat layer behind your mask. The notes do not follow the real shape of your wall, wrap around corners or take on your room's lighting, so a strongly lit or patterned room can make them look pasted on.
- Most notes sit partly behind you by design, so viewers see fragments of several headlines rather than every word. Do not rely on the wall to deliver something the viewer must read.
- Mask quality decides the result. Flyaway hair, glasses and fast gestures near the edge of your body are where notes can show through.
- The warm, contrasty grade applies to the whole frame, including your skin, for the length of the effect.
Sources
- Robust Video Matting (RVM) — GitHub — PeterL1n. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Pillow documentation — Pillow. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Screenshots — Playwright for Python. Accessed October 21, 2026.
- Claude Code overview — Anthropic. Accessed October 21, 2026.
Want the whole library?
Lifetime opens every AI Video Effect, AI Motion Graphic and AI Creator Concept, inside Claude via MCP, for one payment of $79.