I want to make a video explaining recursion with a simple analogy.
I would start with a shot on a table with nothing on it but a box. This box contains contain several other boxes nested inside one another with something else Inside the innermost box – doesn’t matter much what it is. Maybe it’s “the key to recursion.” Maybe it’s a literal key, like a skeleton key, that I would refer to as “the key to recursion.”
I would take a seat behind the table and tell the camera that, in today’s video, I’m going to discover what’s inside the box. I then open the box. Maybe it’s especially hard to open or takes a while for some reason. I open it and find another box. I saw, “Look like it’s a box.” I thank everyone for watching and start rolling the outro.
I stop the outro with a “paused VHS” video effect and maybe some ambient noise like a paused VHS might have made. You can hear a distant voice yelling, “That wasn’t helpful.” Me yelling, “What?” Again, “That didn’t help.”
Back to the shot of the empty desk, now with the two boxes on it. I come back and sit behind it. I say, “I’m being told that wasn’t helpful, so let’s try this again.”
I continue opening boxes until I get to the center, pull out the key, look into the camera, and say, “Oh. It’s the key to recursion.” Zoom transition on the key.
Then, I can explain generally what recursion is and explain a specific example. I can relate it back to the first part of the video, where I couldn’t really say what was inside the box until I opened the innermost box and how recursion looks the same way. I can’t say what’s inside until I get all the way to the center, to the innermost call.