Scenes: Split Screen, Speaker Bubble and Face Follow
What a Scene Is
A talking-head recording rarely keeps one framing. The camera moves from a wide shot of two people to a close-up, then the speaker shares a screen. A single crop to 9:16 fits one of those shots and misses the others. Bitcut treats each stretch between two changes of shot as a scene and keeps a separate layout for it, so the vertical frame follows what is happening.
Webcam + content
A split screen: speaker on top, the shared screen or second person below. Blue tile in the strip.
Webcam bubble
Content fills the frame and the speaker sits in a circle on top of it. Orange tile.
Webcam only
A close-up of the speaker fills the frame. Teal tile.
Content only
The screen or the main shot fills the frame. Indigo tile.
Follow face
The 9:16 window stays on the face as the person moves. Green tile. Part of face tracking.
Arrange a Short by Scenes
Open the layout menu
Select the Short in the editor and tap the layout button in the top bar of the editor, next to the aspect ratio. Its icon shows the current layout, and a spinner while Bitcut looks for the webcam. A Short made from a stream highlight already has a layout.
Tap Arrange by scenes
Bitcut finds the changes of shot, decides what is on screen in each scene, and chooses a layout for it. A strip of colored tiles appears under the timeline, one tile per scene.
Play it through
The preview switches layout at every scene boundary. Scenes are shared by all clips cut from the same source, so a scene you fix once is fixed everywhere it appears.
Change a Scene with One Tap
The scene strip is the main control. Each tile carries the icon and color of its layout, and wider tiles also show the layout name. The active scene has an outline.
- Tap a tile. The playhead jumps into that scene and a short panel opens under the preview. The preview stays live, so playback keeps going while you choose.
- The panel header reads Scene 2 of 6 with the scene's time on the timeline. Arrows jump to the neighbouring scenes.
- Tap a layout card: Webcam + content, Webcam bubble, Webcam only, Content only or Follow face. The change applies at once. Follow face appears once face tracking has run on the clip. In a Short from an ordinary video, not a stream, the cards read Speaker + content, Speaker bubble and Speaker only.
- Close the panel, or tap another tile to keep going.
Tap the Bubble
In a Webcam bubble scene, tap the bubble itself. The menu holds three controls:
- Frame speaker: the bubble stays where it is, and your finger moves the speaker inside it. Drag to center the face, pinch to zoom in or out. The bubble gets an accent outline while you work; tap Done under it to finish.
- Shape: a circle or a rounded square.
- Scene layout: opens the scene panel with the layout cards, the same one you get from a tile in the strip.
To move the bubble around the frame or resize it, skip the menu: drag or pinch the bubble directly.
Fine-Tune Right in the Preview
Every layout can be adjusted with gestures on the preview itself. What a gesture does depends on where it lands:
| Where you touch | Gesture | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Content area | Drag, pinch | Moves the visible part of the content and zooms it in or out |
| Speaker strip (top of a split, or the full frame in Webcam only) | Drag, pinch | Moves and zooms the window on the speaker |
| Seam between the two strips | Drag up or down | Gives the speaker more or less of the frame |
| Webcam bubble | Drag, pinch | Moves the circle and changes its size |
For exact framing, use Adjust frame in the panel. It opens a sheet with a large 9:16 result, a slider for the height of the speaker strip in a split, and the source frame with the two boxes you can move.
Cut a Scene in Two
If one scene needs two layouts, for example the speaker changes the subject halfway through, move the playhead inside the scene and tap Cut scene here in the panel or in the layout menu. The scene becomes two, and each takes its own layout. A scene cannot be cut too close to its edges, so place the playhead a moment away from the boundary.
What the Layout Button Holds
The layout button in the top bar changes the whole clip. Its menu depends on whether the clip is already arranged by scenes.
| Clip state | Menu items |
|---|---|
| Arranged by scenes | Edit this scene opens the panel for the scene under the playhead. Cut scene here. Arrange by scenes runs the scene search again. Turn layout off returns the whole clip to a normal crop. |
| One layout for the whole clip | Arrange by scenes. A layout picker: Webcam + content, Webcam bubble, Webcam only, Content only or Off. Shape for a bubble. Follow face. Cut scene here to split the clip into two scenes by hand. Adjust frames… for exact framing. |