Push in on a detail with the Zoom effect

A push-in tells the viewer where to look. A wide shot becomes a close one, and the detail that matters fills more of the frame. In DepCut the Zoom is an effect bar on the timeline, so it works on any clip and you can change it whenever you like.

Add the zoom

1. Move the playhead to the clip where the detail appears.
2. Open Effects in the left panel and select Moving.
3. Drag Zoom onto the clip. A teal bar named Zoom covers the whole clip and is selected.
4. Drag the handles at the ends of the bar so it covers only the stretch where you want the move.

Aim it

The right panel shows a small copy of the preview with a blue puck on it. Drag the puck onto what matters: a face, a product, a line of text on a screen. The zoom holds that point in place while the frame grows around it. The puck starts in the middle of the frame.

Choose depth and speed

The right panel has two more controls.

• Depth has three buttons, Shallow, Moderate and Deep. Moderate is the default. Deep gets the closest.
• Speed is a slider that counts seconds, from 0.0s to 4.0s. A bigger number means a slower move. At 0.0s the picture is at full depth from the first frame, which gives a hard punch-in. The default is 0.5s.

The camera moves in over the Speed time, holds, and eases back out over the same time before the bar ends. The bar is a round trip. A bar shorter than twice the Speed value never reaches full depth, so keep the bar long enough for the move to arrive and settle.

For a slow reveal, set Speed high and stretch the bar over the whole shot. For emphasis on a single word, set Speed to 0.0s and make the bar a second or so long.

Zoom and your titles

A Zoom pushes in everything on the rows below it, which means the footage plus any titles, shapes and stickers placed lower down. Elements on rows above the Zoom row stay at their size and position. Captions always sit above every effect and stay put.

New effects open in the top row of the element rows, so a title you add later lands below the Zoom and moves with it. Drag the title's bar up above the Zoom row when you want it to hold still while the picture moves.

Use it sparingly

A push-in works because it happens once. Give each beat one purpose:

• Zoom toward the speaker's face for a key line.
• Zoom toward a screen element while you explain it.
• Zoom toward the product when it first appears.

Use the same Depth for similar moments across a video, so the pushes feel like one habit.

Press play from just before the bar to judge the whole move. The camera eases into the push and eases back out, so playing it through tells you more than stepping through single frames.

Aim your first zoom

Pick a clip in DepCut with one clear subject, drop a Zoom on it, and drag the puck onto that subject.