Put a speech bubble on a person in your video

A speech bubble puts words in someone's mouth, which makes it a quick way to add a reaction, a joke or an inner thought to a shot. In DepCut a bubble belongs to a title. You write the line, pick a balloon in the Bubble tab, and the balloon sizes itself to the text.

Write the line

1. Move the playhead to the moment the person reacts and press T.
2. In the right panel, open the Text tab and replace "Your text" with the comment.
3. Press Enter to break a long comment into short lines. A title breaks lines only where you press Enter.

Short lines make a compact balloon that covers less of the shot.

Pick a balloon

Open the Bubble tab. Five buttons sit at the top.

• None removes the balloon.
• Speech is a rounded box with a pointed tail.
• Oval is a rounder balloon with a tail.
• Thought is a cloud with a trail of dots.
• Burst is a spiky shout shape with no tail.

The first time you pick a shape on a white title, the text turns near-black so it stays readable on the white balloon. If you later choose a dark balloon, open the Color tab and set the text back to a light color.

Aim the tail

Speech, Oval and Thought show a Tail grid with six squares: top left, top center, top right, bottom left, bottom center and bottom right. Tails leave the top or bottom edge, so pick the square closest to the person.

• A person below the balloon takes a bottom tail. Pick left, center or right to match where their mouth sits.
• A person above the balloon takes a top tail.
• No tail takes the tail off, or the trail of dots on a thought balloon, and leaves the bare balloon.

A thought balloon draws its dots along the same place you choose for the tail.

Place and finish it

1. Drag the balloon in the preview until it sits beside the head, clear of the face.
2. Use the Color swatches in the Bubble tab to change the fill. The Opacity slider lets the footage show through.
3. Move the Outline slider up for a border. An Outline color row appears once the border has width.
4. Change the Size tab value to scale balloon and text together.

A bubble stands in for the title's Backdrop, so the two never draw together.

Time it, then add a second

Drag the ends of the purple bar so the balloon enters as the person moves or reacts and leaves when the moment ends. Hold it long enough to read the line twice. In the Animate tab, an In style such as Pop gives the balloon a small entrance, and the Length slider keeps that entrance short.

Two people can each get a balloon. Put the second title on its own row by dragging its bar down on the timeline, give it a different tail place, and use the same shape and outline for both so the pair reads as one conversation.

Add one reaction

Pick a clip with a clear face, add a Speech bubble with one short line, and play it back. Open DepCut to build it.