Onboarding
Onboarding that customers actually finish
A recording that pushes in on the thing being clicked is a recording people watch to the end. Prequel places those pushes for you.
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Onboarding videos have a completion problem. The metric that matters is not whether someone pressed play, it is whether they were still watching at the step that makes the product click — and most of them are not.
Part of that is length. A larger part is that a flat screen recording gives the viewer no signal about what to look at. Everything on screen is the same size and the same distance away, for eleven minutes.
Give the eye somewhere to go
Prequel watches where you click and type while it records, and turns those moments into zooms before you ever open the editor. The effect is that the video moves with the task: in on the field being filled, out when you move to the next part of the screen.
That is the thing viewers read as production value, and it is the thing nobody has time to do by hand on a video that will need re-recording next quarter.
Because it will need re-recording
Onboarding videos go stale faster than any other kind. The interface changes and suddenly minute four is showing a screen that no longer exists.
The take is a timeline of slices, so the fix is a trim and a replacement recording rather than a fresh start. Layout, background and audio can change mid-take, so the ninety seconds you record today do not have to match the framing choices you made last spring for the rest of it to keep working.
One take, several videos
The same recording is usually wanted at several lengths — the full walkthrough for the help centre, ninety seconds for the in-app tour, thirty for an email.
Trim it down and export again at a different frame preset. Framing is stored in proportions rather than pixels, so the short vertical cut keeps the camera and the padding where you put them instead of cropping them out of frame.
- Record your screen and cameraPick a display, a window or an area you drag out, with your camera, microphone and system audio each on their own track.
- Zooms and layout are applied automaticallyPrequel reads where you clicked and typed, then places the zooms, frames your camera and sets a background behind it.
- Edit, export and shareMove a zoom, trim a clip or fix a caption, then export one MP4 at up to 4K or send a link that plays anywhere.
Zoom and pan
Zooms that follow the action
Prequel automatically zooms in when you click or type, then softens the rest of the window so viewers know where to look. Every zoom is added to the timeline, so you can move, retime or delete it at any time.
Layouts
Switch layouts clip by clip
Choose from fourteen layouts for the same take: camera in the corner, beside the screen, split with it or hidden entirely. Use one layout for the whole video, or change it clip by clip.
Subtitles
Subtitles you can edit like text
Prequel transcribes every word on your Mac when the editor opens. Fix captions by typing in the transcript, choose a subtitle style or delete a sentence to remove it from the video.
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thanks so much for jumping on this call
Iwanttoshowyousomethingcool
[pause here]
we’ve been building for the past few months
Teleprompter
A teleprompter that follows your voice
Prequel hangs your script from the notch, just under the camera, and follows your voice — the word you're saying lights up as you say it. Wander off script and it waits for you; skip ahead or fall behind and it catches up within a couple of words.
Instant edit
Start with the edit already done
Prequel records where you click and type, then opens the editor with zooms already placed, a framed camera and a polished background. Spend less time building the first cut and more time fine-tuning.
- Zooms placedOn every click and every burst of typing
- Camera framedShaped, sized and set in a corner
- Background appliedPadding, radius, border and shadow
- Audio balancedMicrophone and system on separate gains
- Cursor cleaned upSmoothed, resized, hidden when it idles
The editor
Everything you would have done by hand
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Guide attention automatically
Prequel zooms into the part of the screen that matters: the cursor, a region you draw, or whatever you are typing into. Set the level, the speed and how much the rest of the frame blurs.
Look present without taking over the video
Your camera stays framed and out of the way: circle, squircle, rounded, wide or portrait, in any corner and any size. It is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Make recordings look designed
Add a background, padding and a shadow without editing any of it by hand. Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids.
Cut the parts nobody needs to see
Trim the pauses yourself, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
Keep the pointer out of the way
Fifteen pointer styles, resized so the cursor survives a zoom. Smoothed while it travels, and hidden after a few seconds of stillness.
Export the frame you approved
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file matches what you signed off in the editor.
Quality
Videos stay sharp at 4K
Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine. 1080p at 60 fps records without dropping frames, and 4K is a setting you pick.
- Resolution
- Up to 4K
- Frame rate
- Up to 120 fps
- Codecs
- H.264 · HEVC
- Encoding
- Hardware, VideoToolbox
- Compositing
- Metal
- Output
- Constant frame rate MP4
Formats
Export in any frame
Turn one recording into different formats without manually reframing every element. Switch from landscape to vertical and the layout stays intact.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Record demos worth sharing
Free for 7 days. No watermark on anything you export.
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Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
How long should an onboarding video be?
Under two minutes for the one that plays on first launch, and one video per job rather than one covering everything. Completion falls off a cliff somewhere around the three-minute mark, which is an argument for cutting a long take into several short ones — the same take can produce all of them.
How do I keep an onboarding video current?
Re-record the step that changed rather than the whole video. The take is a timeline of slices, so replacing ninety seconds in the middle is a trim and a new recording, not a fresh start.
Can I make a short version for the in-app tour?
Trim the take down and export it again at a different frame preset. The look survives the change, because the geometry is stored in proportions rather than pixels.
Can I record onboarding videos without being on camera?
Yes. The webcam is optional and, when it is on, it is recorded as its own track — so a video can ship with the camera, without it, or with it appearing only for the introduction.
How do I make the interface readable in a small embedded player?
Let the zooms do it. Prequel pushes in on what you clicked, so the control being explained fills the frame rather than sitting as twelve pixels of text in a corner. A region zoom holds still over a form, which is what a signup step usually needs.
Can I fix the sound if a notification lands mid-recording?
Yes. The microphone and system audio are separate tracks with separate gains, so a notification arriving over your voice is a slider afterwards rather than a reason to start again.
What does Prequel need to run?
An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later and the Screen Recording permission. Zooms that follow what you type also use Accessibility; without it that input is absent rather than broken.