# Evidence Board

Visual journalism on a dark felt board: the sources themselves, pinned as cards with their source tags; the camera pushes into the original line, a highlighter marks it, and red thread ties the cards into a case.

## Essence, and what it is not

- The evidence is the picture: documents, transcripts and photographs in their own words, never paraphrased.
- Every card says where it came from: a dark tag under its edge, holder and date.
- The camera reads: it glides card to card and pushes in until the quoted line fills the frame; a highlighter sweeps it as it is said.
- Red thread is the argument: a link is a thread run pin to pin as it is spoken. What is pinned stays, so the end is the whole case.

Not a detective cork board (no fingerprints, tape, mugshots, stamps or handwriting), not Red Pencil (one sheet marked by a judge), not a slide of quotes, not Screen Desk (one app on a pale desk), not Stage Light (a lit stage of figures).

## Ground and material

`board.tsx`: warm charcoal felt (`bg`) with a weave and old pin holes, one soft light from above, a vignette; a camera (`data-camera`) over board pixels. `card.tsx`: paper (`panel`), a photo's whiter mount or an aged slip (`panel2`), a shadow that tightens as it lands, one steel pin (threads end on small tacks), a tag. A claim with no source is a torn slip. Photographs are real, licensed prints.

## Colour roles

- `bg`: the felt, and the ink on every paper. `panel`, `panel2`: paper. `text`, `muted`: words written on the board itself.
- `data`: the highlighter, the one mark on a source (a swept line, crop corners, the deciding figure). One sweep at a time; a swept passage stays marked, as the record of what was quoted.
- `op`: the red thread and nothing else: no red text or marks.
- Photographs keep their own colour, a little calmed. `good`, `bad`, `warn` are not used: no other colour.

## Type and captions

Newsreader (`display`) for documents, figures and the case title: body 28 to 34 board px, read pushed in at zoom 1.3 to 1.5 with the card whole in frame; figures 70 to 130; title 90 to 110. Hanken Grotesk (`sans`) for tags and labels, small bold capitals 17 to 24. JetBrains Mono (`mono`) for dates and timestamps. Chinese: Noto Serif SC for documents, Noto Sans SC for tags. The caption is a paper slip: dark Hanken 36 px on `panel`, square, the cards' shadow.

## Motion

Physical, with depth. A card flies in from in front of the board, turned, lands, flutters flat as its shadow tightens; the pin goes in, the tag slides out. Glides and pushes take 1.4 to 1.8 s (`cubic-bezier(0.45, 0, 0.15, 1)`), the board blurring at the fastest point (`travel`). Reading a card, the others go soft and dark (`focus`): a rack focus. Openings and closings may lean the board under a raking light (`tilt`, `turn`), level before a line is read. The highlighter's nib sweeps word by word, on the words; a thread runs out slack and twangs taut. Nothing flashes, shakes or stamps; text being read never moves.

## Composition and framing

Design the board whole first: sources left to right in the order they happened, the claim or title top left, a figure card by its source, the date rail along the foot. Every shot is a crop of it: pushed in to read, medium so a thread has both ends, whole at the end. Keep cards above the caption (frame centre at y 430).

## Sound

Optional: a pin pressed in, paper set down, a highlighter's squeak, room tone.

## Components

- **data** — Figures from the source (`react/parts/chart.tsx`): A source's figures as bars on a zero baseline, each drawn as it is said, the deciding one highlighted. Fits: rated against supplied; a claim against the count; a short series from a table
- **data** — Photograph (`react/parts/photo.tsx`): A real photograph as a print with its holder's caption; crop corners close in on the detail named. Fits: the damage, the place, the sign: licensed and credited
- **ground** — Board and camera (`react/parts/board.tsx`): A dark felt board under one soft light, old pin holes in its weave, and the camera that glides across it and pushes into a card. Fits: every scene: everything inside in board pixels; tween camX, camY, zoom
- **link** — Red thread (`react/parts/thread.tsx`): A red thread run between two cards as the link is said, tacked at each end, slack, then taut. Fits: the photo that shows what the call reported; the finding that explains the photo
- **open** — Claim slip (`react/parts/claim.tsx`): The claim as people repeat it, on a torn slip with no source tag. Fits: the opening of a fact-check: a misquote, a shared figure, a wrong date
- **quote** — Document (`react/parts/document.tsx`): The source in its own words, timestamped rows for a transcript; the line that matters is highlighted as it is said. Fits: a transcript line, a report's sentence, a clause of a law; quoted exactly, cut with …
- **steps** — Date rail (`react/parts/timeline.tsx`): A steel wire along the foot of the board with a dated clip under each source. Fits: the days of an event; the order the sources came in
- **term** — Pinned card (`react/parts/card.tsx`): A card set down on the board, pressed in by one pin, its source tag slid out from under its edge. Fits: every source: a page, a transcript, a photograph, a figure
- **title** — Case title (`react/parts/title.tsx`): The case written on the felt: a mono line of dates over a large serif question. Fits: the opening question of an investigation or a fact-check

## Native moves

- **Push into the line.** From the wide board into one card, the rest racked soft; the highlighter sweeps the sentence as it is quoted. *Fits content like:* what a recording says; the clause a story rests on; the sentence naming the cause.
- **Pin and tag the source.** A card set down, pinned, its tag sliding out as the narration names it. *Fits content like:* an archive photograph; a court filing; a letter.
- **Run the thread.** Card to card, twanged taut as the link is said. *Fits content like:* the photo that shows what the call reported; the memo behind a decision.
- **Bars from the page.** A source's figures as bars from zero, each grown as said. *Fits content like:* rated against supplied; budget against spending; reported against counted.
- **Crop to the detail.** Corners close from a photograph's edges onto what is named. *Fits content like:* a missing panel; a date on a sign; one face in a crowd.
- **Claim against record.** A torn slip with the claim, the source threaded to it and highlighted; disproved, the slip swings crooked on its pin (`hang`). *Fits content like:* a misquote; a shared figure; a date everyone gets wrong.
- **The whole case.** Pull back over the date rail; a glint runs along each thread in turn (`pulse`). *Fits content like:* an investigation's end; an event's timeline; how we know.

## Avoid: pitfalls

- A source paraphrased on a card stops being evidence. Fix: quote it exactly, cut with … .
- A tag that describes. Fix: holder, identifier, date.
- A line read wide, or swept after the camera left it. Fix: push in (1.3 to 1.5) first; stay until the sweep ends.
- A thread across text or a photograph's face. Fix: pin in the margin (`pinX`) on the side the thread runs to.
- Red for emphasis. Fix: emphasis is the highlighter.
- A read card cut by the frame. Fix: short cards (split a long source), framed whole.
- An end shot too small. Fix: fit the board at zoom 0.5; there only the title and the rail are read, so set them large.
- A generated or unlicensed picture as evidence. Fix: a licensed photograph, or none.

## Freedom in each work

Each film decides its sources, layout, moves, opening and ending. Three structures: a fact-check from a claim slip to the record; an event day by day along the date rail; a cause traced backwards from the damage to the document, ending on the deciding figure.