Record yourself over the video

You don't have to be on camera while you record your screen. Record the screen first, edit it, then film yourself while the finished video plays. It's easier to talk well when you already know what's coming.

Record a take

1. Open the Camera tab (⌘3) and click Record yourself. You can also click Add in the timeline bar and pick Record yourself, or click the camera button on a part in the Parts tab.
2. The card says what you'll record over, such as The whole video, and whether it records Camera and voice. Click Change to pick something else: - This part: just the part at the playhead. - This slide: the selected slide, or the slide at the playhead. It waits until you press Stop or →, even if you previously set its length or record without a microphone. Its new length follows your take. - The whole video. - From the playhead: from here to the end. - Camera and voice, or Camera only (keep the recorded sound).
3. Click Record. Look at the camera. After a countdown, the video plays and Cinemac films you.
4. Press Space or click Stop to end. Press esc to throw the take away.

The camera button on a Parts row records over exactly that row, even when a recording continues after a slide. The microphone button records just your voice over the same part. If you keep talking past a video's end, its last frame holds while you finish, and the next part waits.

Slides wait for you. If you're still talking as a slide ends, the video stays on it until you pause, then goes on. Press → to move on from a slide sooner. Each slide then plays for as long as it did while you recorded. A slide whose length you set by hand plays as set. See Slides that follow your voice.

Presenting a deck, each page waits until you press →, and → on the last page ends the take. You can also present with just your voice, and the camera stays off. See Present a deck.

The first time, Cinemac asks Where should you be?:

• Stay out of the way puts you in the corner your clicks leave free.
• Big at start and end shows you full screen for your hello and goodbye, and smaller in between.

You can change it any time in the Camera tab. See Your camera in the video.

Your takes on the timeline

Each take is a block on the timeline's Camera row. Click a take for its card:

• Drag the take's left or right end to trim its camera and voice together. You can also enter Starts at and Ends at in the card. The other edge stays in place, and trimming the take does not shorten the underlying slide.
• Extend an edge to bring footage back, or choose Reset trim in the card or right-click menu. Trims are undoable and the original footage remains available after saving.
• Record again: film that stretch once more.
• My voice: use or drop the sound you recorded with the take.
• Move to the playhead: drag a take to move it, or use this to put it exactly at the playhead.
• Delete: remove the take.

To shorten the slide itself, drag its end in the Clips row. Cutting a range out of a slide also cuts the matching camera and voice samples. Presentation speech stays with its page when you reorder or shorten pages, and deleting a page removes its presentation speech.

When you change a part's speed after recording yourself, your camera and voice stay together. Your voice changes pace without changing pitch. Moving a take keeps its current playback length and speed.

In the Camera tab, Where you appear shows which stretches use the recording's camera and which use a take (Recorded later).