Shotcut tutorial · companion page
One filter on one six-frame scrap of clip. Rotate and Scale is keyframed from 100.0 % to 300.0 % across the last six frames before the cut, and the next shot lands while the frame is still flying — so the eye reads a camera move, not an edit.
Reading in another language? Use the translate picker in the header, or your browser’s own translate command — the Shotcut filter, control and value names are marked to stay in English so they still match what is on your screen.
There is no transition object and no plugin. The last six frames of the outgoing shot are split off into their own clip, and that scrap is scaled up hard enough that the cut underneath it goes unnoticed.
By the final frame the outgoing shot is three times its normal size and nothing in it is readable. The incoming shot starts on the next frame, and the eye accepts the two as one continuous move.
The push happens in a fifth of a second. Long enough to register as motion, short enough that the distortion never becomes something to look at.
Rotate and Scale handles all of it. Scale does the zoom; X offset and Y offset steer where the zoom lands. Rotation is left alone.
A zoom into the centre of the frame only works if the subject is in the centre. The offsets pull the growing frame back over the subject, and the player grid tells you when you have got there.
[ have the video zoom into me and go into another video to make it look like it transitioned seamlessly ]
Ben Espanto · 1:10
Click any screencap or timestamp to play that chapter from its exact second, right here in the card. Quotes are transcribed verbatim from the audio. The first three headings are Ben’s own chapter titles; the last stretch is split into its real steps, because the published chapter list runs one heading across half the video.
“I’m just a normal person with no video editing background who wanted to start making YouTube videos and maybe add semi-fancy effects.”
The standard channel opening, cut over B-roll of the shotcut.org home page. No editing happens yet — the first frame of the actual project appears at 0:44.
“I took the liberty of dragging the two files that I’m going to be using already on my playlist, and I’m going to drag it into the timeline.”
Both source files are already sitting in the Playlist panel: #1 _fastproxy_132812_00_013.mp4 at 00:02:06:20 and #2 GX048695-speed.mp4 at 00:00:06:11. This chapter runs to 3:10 and covers the whole timeline setup — a clip per track, the incoming clip trimmed with the scissor, and the six-frame split.
“Today, we’re going to focus on a filter called Rotate and Scale. It’s probably one of the most commonly used filters on Shotcut.”
One filter, added to the six-frame tail clip only. The chapter title says Size, Position & Rotate; the panel in this recording reads Rotate and Scale — go by what your own copy of Shotcut shows. At this point every field is still at its default: Rotation 0.0 deg, Scale 100.0 %, X offset 0, Y offset 0, and no keyframes.
“So first you position your cursor at the beginning of your clip and set that to 100%. That’s because you don’t want any magnification right off the bat because you want to make it look seamless.”
The playhead is parked on the first frame of the zoom clip, 00:00:06:05, and the stopwatch beside Scale is switched on — that single click turns the value into a keyframe and lights the button teal. The value itself does not move: it stays at 100.0 %.
“And then you position it at the end of the clip and then we’re going to set the magnification to let’s say 300%.”
Playhead to the last frame of the clip, Scale typed up to 300.0 %. Two keyframes now exist and the zoom is finished in its crudest form. X offset and Y offset are still 0 and still un-keyframed.
“As I’m zooming in, I notice that I’m a little bit off-center in this particular clip. So what I want to do is I want to activate the grids icon.”
The grid toggle in the player toolbar is on — the three-by-three overlay Ben calls the tic-tac-toe boxes — and X offset has been keyframed and typed to 109 at 00:00:06:10. The Scale readout beside it shows 266.7 %, the interpolated value one frame short of the end.
“Now, I also want to make sure that I’m at the center up and down. And so I’m going to activate the Y offset. And so I’m going to set the initial keyframe to zero.”
The finished filter, every value visible: Rotation 0.0 deg, Scale 300.0 %, X offset 109, Y offset −56, with the stopwatch lit on all three keyframed fields. The subject sits on the grid centre at the end of the push.
“Throughout my year playing around with Shotcut, I’ve discovered some easy tricks and hacks that have definitely sped up my workflow and made my videos look better.”
End card — subscribe, plus the bentacular handle where the fishing footage in this tutorial comes from.
Every number below was read off the screen in the video. Nothing here is a recommended-sounding guess — if a value is not stated, it is because it was never shown.
Drag the outgoing shot onto V1 and the incoming shot onto V2, butted end to end rather than overlapped. Ben keeps every clip on its own track so a later master filter can be dropped on one track without touching the other.
Park the playhead on the exact moment the second shot should begin — in the video that is the instant the hook is set — then use the scissor button on the timeline toolbar to split, and delete the head you do not want. The transition is only as good as the frame it lands on.
Do this before you build the zoom. Moving the incoming clip afterwards does not break the filter, but it does change which frame the push resolves into.
Send the playhead to the end of the clip on V1, then tap the left arrow key six times — one frame per press — and split there. That leaves a short tail clip which is the only thing that will carry the filter.
Splitting first is the point of the step. Anything you add to the long clip later — colour, stabilisation, a speed change — then stays off the zoom, and the zoom stays off it.
Select the six-frame clip, open Filters, press + and add Rotate and Scale. Leave every field at its default for now.
Shotcut’s published chapter list calls this filter Size, Position & Rotate. The panel in the recording says Rotate and Scale. They are the same control — use whichever name your copy shows.
Put the playhead on the first frame of the clip and click the stopwatch beside Scale. The button turns teal and the current value becomes a keyframe — leave it at 100.0 % so the shot opens undisturbed. Then move to the last frame and type 300.0 %. A second keyframe is created automatically.
The markers are diamonds and the line between them is straight: this is plain linear interpolation, the Shotcut default. No ease-in or ease-out is set anywhere in this tutorial.
Zoom straight into the centre and you will only be centred if your subject already was. Switch on the grid button in the player toolbar to get the three-by-three overlay, then keyframe X offset the same way: 0 at the head of the clip, and at the tail whatever number puts the subject on the centre lines. In the video that number is 109.
X offset is the left-and-right control. Nudge it with the arrow keys while the grid is up rather than typing blind — you are matching a shape on screen, not hitting a number.
Same routine on the vertical: 0 at the head, and at the tail the value that lifts the subject onto the horizontal centre line. Here that is −56. Then run the whole thing at speed — six frames is too short to judge by scrubbing.
Ben says it plainly in the video: starting off-centre limits how good this can get. If the subject is badly placed in the source shot, fix the framing before you reach for the offsets.
Read directly off the frames of the video. This effect is one filter and four fields, so this table is the tutorial — you can rebuild the transition from it without playing anything.
| Setting | Value | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Shotcut version, as recorded | Shotcut V20.02.17 | Stated in the video description; no on-screen dialog |
| Outgoing clip | GX048695-speed.mp4 | Playlist #2, placed on V1 |
| Outgoing clip duration | 00:00:06:11 | Playlist |
| Incoming clip | _fastproxy_132812_00_013.mp4 | Playlist #1, placed on V2 |
| Incoming clip duration | 00:02:06:20 | Playlist |
| Timeline total | 00:02:09:23 | Player, Project tab |
| Track layout | V2 incoming / V1 outgoing | Timeline |
| Split point on V1 | 00:00:06:05 | Six frames back from the end of the clip |
| Zoom clip | 00:00:06:05 → 00:00:06:11 | Timeline, tail of V1 |
| Filter | Rotate and Scale | Zoom clip only — nothing else carries a filter |
| Preset | None selected | Rotate and Scale |
| Rotation | 0.0 deg | Rotate and Scale |
| Scale, opening | 100.0 % | Rotate and Scale |
| Scale, closing | 300.0 % | Rotate and Scale |
| X offset, opening | 0 | Rotate and Scale |
| X offset, closing | 109 | Rotate and Scale |
| Y offset, opening | 0 | Rotate and Scale |
| Y offset, closing | −56 | Rotate and Scale |
| Keyframe interpolation | Linear (diamond markers, straight ramp) | Keyframes panel |
| Easing | None applied | Keyframes panel |
| Grid overlay | On, three-by-three | Player toolbar |
| Parameter | Opening keyframe | Closing keyframe | Interpolation | Keyframed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rotation | 0.0 deg | 0.0 deg | — | No |
| Scale | 100.0 % | 300.0 % | Linear | Yes |
| X offset | 0 | 109 | Linear | Yes |
| Y offset | 0 | −56 | Linear | Yes |
The ramp is confirmed arithmetically as well as visually: with the playhead one frame short of the end, at 00:00:06:10, the panel reads 266.7 % — exactly five sixths of the way from 100.0 % to 300.0 % over six frame steps. The X offset and Y offset values were typed in at that same position, 00:00:06:10, rather than on the very last frame.
No About Shotcut dialog appears anywhere in this recording, so the build is not readable from the pixels. The version below the video states Shotcut V20.02.17, and that is the build this tutorial was recorded on — not the one you are running.
Machine transcribed from the video audio. Spoken phrasing is left as-is; only the filter name the transcriber mangled has been corrected. Every timestamp plays the video in the hero from that second.
I’m just a normal person with no video editing background who wanted to start making YouTube
videos and maybe add semi-fancy effects.
I don’t really plan on making major motion pictures or commercials, so I was looking
for a free, easy-to-learn video editing software.
Luckily, I stumbled on Shotcut, a free, open-source video editing program that has
the potential to replicate similar effects that an Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve
can, but with a simpler, leaner interface.
It just takes imagination.
So let’s learn together.
So here we have Shotcut.
I took the liberty of dragging the two files that I’m going to be using already on
my playlist, and I’m going to drag it into the timeline.
So this is the zoom from file, which is basically fishing videos that I’m going to be using,
only because I have so much fishing videos from all my other YouTube channel, and so
this is going to be the source.
And what I’m going to try to do is have the video zoom into me and go into another
video to make it look like it transitioned seamlessly, to make it look like I just
caught a fish in the next scene.
And so I’m going to drag the second video into another track.
I find it a lot easier when I separate my video clips into different tracks, just in
case I want to do a master effect or master filter on all of it.
Hold on, let me turn off the sound here so it doesn’t bug you.
So this is where I’m going to zoom into, but I want to cut it to there, right
when I get a bite and right when I set the hook.
And so I’m going to click on this cutting tool, I’m going to pick the clip, I’m going to use
the scissor icon, and it then removes the clip that I don’t want to use.
And so that’s going to be the transition.
It’s going to zoom from a video of me right into this cast.
And so what I want to do is I want to add a zoom effect so it makes it look
like it’s from the same clip.
And here’s how we’re going to do it.
First, I go to the end of the very first track.
And I’m going to do is I’m going to count back six frames.
And so I’m just going to use the left arrow key and press it six times.
And just so I can isolate the area that I’m going to zoom, I’m actually going to cut this clip.
And only focus on the clip that I’m going to zoom into.
Just so if I ever do additional filters or effects on the previous clip,
it doesn’t affect the zoom clip that I just cut out.
Today, we’re going to focus on a filter called Rotate and Scale.
It’s probably one of the most commonly used filters on Shotcut.
Along with that, we’re going to be using the keyframe functionality.
If you don’t know what a keyframe is or you want to learn more about it,
I can probably make a video.
So if you comment below and if I get enough comments,
I’ll most likely make a video to demonstrate how to utilize keyframes.
So first you position your cursor at the beginning of your clip and set that to 100%.
That’s because you don’t want any magnification right off the bat
because you want to make it look seamless.
And then you position it at the end of the clip
and then we’re going to set the magnification to let’s say 300%.
And so that’s what it’s going to do.
At the beginning of the clip, it’s going to start at 100%
and then it’s going to then zoom into 300%.
And basically that’s it. That’s what the keyframe does.
It’s whatever setting you set at the beginning of the clip
and then whatever setting you set at the next keyframe,
which in this instance I set it for the end of the clip.
As I’m zooming in, I notice that I’m a little bit off-center in this particular clip.
So what I want to do is I want to activate the grids icon.
You see little boxes there, little tic-tac-toe boxes in there.
And what I want to do is I want to make it look like the video is zooming to me.
And so as I’m zooming in, I want to make sure that I’m at the center.
So this time I’m going to activate the X offset of the Rotate and Scale setting
so that it then creates another keyframe.
And I’m going to set the beginning keyframe to zero,
but at the end I want to make sure that I’m at the center of it.
And so the X offset is basically the left and right setting.
So if you want to move yourself left or right.
So I’m using the grid so that I can ensure that I’m at the center of this whole thing.
Now, I also want to make sure that I’m at the center up and down.
And so I’m going to activate the Y offset.
And so I’m going to set the initial keyframe to zero.
But then I’m going to set my cursor to the very end.
And I want to make sure that I’m at the center of this video.
And so I’m going to move it up a little bit here.
And how you do this is just using the up or down arrow key.
Whether or not you want to move yourself up or down.
Or let’s just keep playing it to make sure that it’s...
Again, it’s not going to be perfect because I started out not at the center of the video.
So this is the best that we can do.
I mean, I can probably clip part of this video,
but for all intents and purposes I just want to make sure that you know how to apply the zoom effect.
Hey guys, thanks for watching this video.
If you want to see more, please click the subscribe button.
Throughout my year playing around with Shotcut,
I’ve discovered some easy tricks and hacks that have definitely sped up my workflow
and made my videos look better.
If you’re curious about how to do specific effects,
please comment below so I can create a tutorial video.
Let’s help each other out.
I appreciate your subscription.
Until next time.
