1. explain.film
  2. Sample films
  3. What Is Cortisol? Your Body’s Alarm

Pop comic book explainer · 49 seconds · English

What Is Cortisol? Your Body’s Alarm

A 49-second health explainer drawn as a pop comic book: what cortisol is, why it peaks after you wake, how nonstop stress keeps it on, and why a real “moon face” comes from Cushing syndrome, not a stressful week.

The brief
“What is cortisol?”
Style
Pop comic book
Length and frame
49 seconds · 16:9
Made for
Lessons and courses

How it was made.

The brief was the question plus the exact script, checked line by line against health sources (Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, the Endocrine Society), with every claim kept as strong as its source: “linked to”, never “causes”. The director turned cortisol into an alarm clock and stress into an on/off switch.

It is the wide cut of one of our own Shorts, with the same script, the same comic style and the same voice. It cost about $6 of model spend to make.

Every film on explain.film is made the same way: one sentence in, a storyboard you approve, then the director paints, voices, scores and animates it, and a critic model grades the cut before you see it.

Transcript

  1. Stressed? TikTok says it is giving you cortisol face.
  2. Here is what cortisol really is.
  3. A steroid hormone your brain orders from adrenal glands on your kidneys.
  4. It peaks soon after you wake: your get-up-and-go.
  5. In a scare, it fuels you, then switches off.
  6. Nonstop stress keeps it on, linked to poor sleep, weight gain, heart disease.
  7. A real moon face comes from Cushing syndrome: cortisol stuck far too high for months, usually from long-term steroid medicines.
  8. A stressful week won't do that. Sleep, movement and slow breaths help it switch off.
  9. Cortisol is not the enemy. It is your alarm.
  10. The trouble starts when it never switches off.

More films made with explain.film.

Fieldline Comics #Q3: The Quarter in Panels, a frame from the film

Fieldline Comics #Q3: The Quarter in Panels

A 34-second quarterly recap for a company all-hands, drawn as a pop comic book. Three wins, one miss and one bet for next quarter, each in its own panel, ending on “On to Q4.”

Pop comic book34sEnglish
Three Steps Back, a frame from the film

Three Steps Back

A 33-second vertical how-to in bold flat vector: returning an order from Northwind Outfitters in three steps, from Start a return to a QR code to any pickup point, with the refund in three days.

Bold flat vector33sEnglish
Fieldline — Take the whiteboard off the wall, a frame from the film

Fieldline — Take the whiteboard off the wall

A 47-second seed-round pitch film in isometric low-poly. One dispatcher, forty jobs and a whiteboard; a burst pipe breaks the plan; Fieldline re-plans every crew in seconds. It ends on the ask: $3M to launch in ten cities.

Isometric low-poly47sEnglish
How does a rainbow form?, a frame from the film

How does a rainbow form?

A 33-second science explainer in a Risograph print style. Dot the raindrop shows how white sunlight splits into colours inside a raindrop, and why you only see a rainbow with the sun behind you.

Risograph print33sEnglish
Why can’t we just print more money?, a frame from the film

Why can’t we just print more money?

A 56-second economics explainer in an editorial collage style. From a 200-billion-mark loaf of bread in 1923 Berlin to a town with a hundred loaves, it shows why printing money does not make anyone richer.

Editorial collage56sEnglish
Say it once, a frame from the film

Say it once

A 55-second product promo in kinetic typography, made by explain.film about itself. Bold type on flat colour carries the pitch: one sentence in, a finished film out.

Kinetic typography55sEnglish
Tell Me More, a frame from the film

Tell Me More

A 49-second leadership training film in an editorial collage style. It shows why answering every question fast ends the conversation, and how asking first brings the bad news early, while it is still small.

Editorial collage49sEnglish
Rest Is Part of the Job, a frame from the film

Rest Is Part of the Job

A 54-second internal HR explainer in bold flat vector for The Good Corp, a made-up company: how to book time off in the right order, from a request in GoodTime to approval, and only then the flights.

Bold flat vector54sEnglish
Kuršių nerija, a frame from the film

Kuršių nerija

A 69-second explainer in Lithuanian about the Curonian Spit, the 98-kilometre strip of sand between the Baltic Sea and the Curonian Lagoon: the legend of the giantess Neringa, the dunes that buried whole villages, and the forest people planted to hold them.

Risograph print69sLithuanian

Got a topic of your own?

One sentence is enough. Approve the storyboard and get a narrated, animated film like this one in about 15 minutes.

Make a film like this