A 30-second spec ad for Starface Hydro-Stars, pimple patches shaped like stars. It's a Gen Z UGC piece written in the brand's own voice, playful and a little chaotic. The idea is the brand's own belief: a breakout isn't something to hide, it's something to decorate. She has a party tonight and a pimple today, so she adds a star, then two more, until it's a look.

What I did

I kept Starface's own words for what the patches do: they "absorb pimple fluid, reduce redness, and prevent picking". Then I built Rue, 20, with a copper shag, silver piercings and a messy, colourful room. A product sheet showed the compact with its smiling face and the small coloured stars. The story needed the stars to appear one by one, so I wrote them as states: one pimple, then one star, then three. Eight shots, and she talks over the b-roll too.

What I changed

The first generation went wrong in three ways. The compact came out with two lids. In one selfie she held the compact like a phone. And stars kept appearing on her face by themselves, seven or eight instead of three. I remade her reference with exactly three stars, described the phone as plain black and never in frame, and wrote that a star appears only when her finger presses it on. Then I cut the final film from the best shots of both generations, checking that every shot has the right number of stars.

What I learned

Small repeated objects multiply unless you give the model an exact count. A reference image is a promise: if it shows five stars, the film will show five. And when you mix two generations, match the state of every shot, not only the face.