Glossary
Zoom and pan
Pushing the picture in on part of the screen, then moving it to follow the action, so a viewer sees what the presenter is doing without squinting at a full screen.
Zoom and pan is the camera move a screen recording borrows from film: push in on part of the frame so the viewer can see it, move with the action, and pull back out when it is over. On a screen the camera is virtual, so the move is made in the edit by scaling and shifting the recorded frame.
Why screen recordings need it
A full display is big and a player is small. A 2880 by 1800 recording played in a 700 pixel wide box shows every menu item at a few pixels tall, and the viewer is left squinting at where the pointer went. Zooming to the part of the screen being used shows it at a size they can read. Pulling back out afterwards puts it in context, so they know where on the screen it was.
The effect also sets the pace. A zoom on each click gives a recording a rhythm that a static capture does not have, which is most of what people mean when they say a recording looks polished.
Placing them
By hand, the work is to find each click in the timeline, add a zoom, set where it points and how far in it goes, and set how long it holds. Ten minutes of recording is a few dozen of those.
Prequel places them for you. It records where you click and type while it captures, and when the editor opens the zooms are already on the timeline: one for each place you worked, pushed in on it, pulled back when you moved on. Each can be dragged, resized or deleted, and more can be drawn where you want them. The zooms page has the controls, including a zoom that follows the pointer and a tilt that gives the push some depth.
Related terms
- Aspect ratioThe proportion of a video's width to its height. 16:9 is landscape and the default for screens; 9:16 is vertical and what Shorts, Reels and TikTok want.
- Picture-in-pictureA camera feed drawn as a small window over a screen recording, so the viewer sees the presenter and the screen at the same time.
Questions people ask
- Why do screen recordings zoom in on clicks?
- A full 1440 by 900 screen played back in a 640 pixel wide player makes every menu item a few pixels tall. Zooming in on where the click happened shows the viewer the control at a size they can read, and the pull back out puts it in context again.
- How does Prequel place zooms automatically?
- It records where you click and type while capturing, then when the editor opens on the take, those moments have already been turned into zooms: pushed in on what you were doing, pulled back out when you moved on. Each one can be moved, resized or deleted, and more can be drawn by hand.