Short · 9:16
What if shorts: one world, one change, a big counter
The What if format is Heady's original short: one world, locked in place, changes along one axis (time, depth, speed or scale) while a big counter ticks on screen. One fact per beat, and the last line loops back to the first.
Example
What if every human vanished today?
Beats
Example outline- 0:00Hook: the streets are empty
- 0:10Day 1: the lights stay on
- 0:20Week 1: the power grid fails
- 0:31Year 1: the cities go green
- 0:45Loop back to the empty street
The hook
“What if every human on Earth vanished right now? The first thing you'd notice is the silence.”
Settings to start from
- Length
- 30–120 seconds
- Look
- One locked world in a preset style: Toon 3D, Low-poly City, Pixel Art, Space Epic and more
- Voice
- A fast, punchy narrator
- Motion
- Depth parallax and frame morphs between beats, word-by-word subtitles
Tips
Making what if scenarios that work
- 1
Pick one axis
Time, depth, speed or scale: the counter shows it, and every beat moves it forward. Two axes and the video stops making sense.
- 2
Lock the camera
The same place, the same framing, a new state every beat. That's what makes the morph between frames look like time passing.
- 3
Close the loop
End on a line that leads back into the first. Loops are why short viewers watch twice.
Questions
What if scenarios: questions
Is the What if format free to try?
Yes. The free plan includes 3 shorts a month in 720p with a small watermark.
Can a short be drawn instead of generated?
Yes. In Drawn mode every scene is SVG, animated in layers, with no image generated at all.
More use cases