Launches
A launch video worth the front page
The video on a launch post is doing the selling. Record it once and let Prequel hand back something that looks like it took a week.
+1kLiked by 1000s of creatorsNo credit card required
On a launch post the video is the pitch. People scroll, the video autoplays, and roughly six seconds later they have decided whether to read the words. A raw screen capture spends those six seconds showing a desktop.
The good launch videos are not expensive so much as edited. They cut early, they push in on the moment the product does its trick, and they never linger.
Get to the trick
Record the walkthrough once. Prequel notes your clicks and keystrokes as it captures and opens the editor with the zooms already placed on them, so the first thing you see is a version that already moves.
From there it is subtraction. The timeline has a waveform under every clip and a playhead that scrubs, so cutting a four-minute take down to sixty seconds is a handful of blade cuts rather than an evening. Zoom level and speed are set per zoom, which is how a fast cut still reads as deliberate.
One take, every placement
A launch needs the same video in several shapes — landscape for the post, vertical for social, maybe square.
Switch the frame preset and export again. Framing is stored as a fraction of the frame's shorter edge, so the vertical cut keeps the camera and the padding where you put them rather than cropping them out. The look holds across all of them without a second recording.
No render queue on launch day
Everything happens on your Mac. Capture, compositing and export all run on its own media engine — hardware H.264 or HEVC, composited in Metal — so there is no upload, no queue and nothing between you and the file at the moment you are least able to wait for it.
What comes out is one MP4 at up to 4K, with no watermark on it.
- 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.
No credit card required
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
How long should a product launch video be?
Sixty to ninety seconds for the video on a launch post, and under thirty for the clip that goes with the tweet. Both come off one take — record the walkthrough properly, then cut two lengths out of it.
How short can I get it without it feeling rushed?
Cuts are slices on a timeline with a waveform under every clip, so trimming to sixty seconds is a scrub and a few blade cuts. Zoom level and speed are set per zoom, which is how a fast cut still reads as deliberate rather than jumpy.
Can I make a vertical cut for social at the same time?
Yes, from the same take. Switch the frame preset and export again — the framing survives because it is stored in proportions rather than pixels.
How quickly can I turn one around on launch day?
Fast enough to redo it if the first attempt is wrong. There is no import, no render queue and no zooms to place, so the loop is record, trim, export — and export runs on your Mac's media engine rather than a queue somewhere else.
Will it look like a screen recording?
Only if you want it to. The recording sits on a background with padding, a corner radius, a border and a shadow, the webcam is framed rather than parked in a corner, and the camera moves through the video instead of holding one distance for ninety seconds.
Can I record a launch video without appearing on camera?
Yes, and you can decide after the fact. The webcam is a separate track, so a take recorded with it on can ship without it.
What do I need to record a launch video on a Mac?
An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later and the Screen Recording permission. Everything else — the background, the framing, the cuts — is decided after the recording rather than before it.