The short answer
To turn a landscape screen and camera recording into a vertical video in Creavit Studio, switch the canvas to 9:16 and choose a camera layout: a full-camera layout for a talking-head clip, or a stacked layout with the camera above the screen. Then keep Follow face on, so the narrower vertical crop keeps your face in frame as you move.
Follow face is a camera setting that keeps your face in the visible area and glides along when you move. Detection runs on your Mac. If other people's faces appear in the screen recording, for example in a video call, Auto-blur faces hides them with Blur, Pixelate or Solid.
Why a vertical crop needs face tracking
A landscape recording has plenty of room. When you crop it to 9:16, most of that room is gone. A fixed crop works only if you never move. Lean back, look at a second monitor, or reach for a coffee, and half your face leaves the frame.
Follow face solves this by steering the visible area of the camera with your face. Instead of drawing a crop and hoping, the frame moves with you, smoothly enough that it reads as camera work rather than a jump.
Plan the framing before you record
Face tracking can only keep in frame what the camera captured. A few habits make the vertical version much easier:
- Leave room around your head. Sit far enough from the camera that your shoulders are visible. A tight landscape close-up leaves Follow face nothing to move within.
- Keep the light in front of you. A window behind you makes the face darker and harder to detect.
- Put the important part of the screen near the middle. In a stacked layout, the screen area is narrower than your original recording, so content at the far edges is the first to become small.
- Decide on the format first. If you know the video is only for Reels, Shorts or TikTok, recording a vertical camera from the start gives the best image.
Step 1: Record with a camera
Any camera layer works: the Mac's built-in camera, an external webcam, or your iPhone through Phone Camera. The webcam recording page covers camera layouts in general.
Use your iPhone as the camera
For a sharper vertical shot, use the iPhone's front or back camera. In the recorder, open the Camera menu, choose the iPhone camera and pick 9:16. Scan the QR code shown on the Mac; the phone opens camera.creavit.studio, and you tap Connect to Mac. No app install is needed on the phone.
Both screens show the same four-digit code. Confirm it on the Mac with Accept, or choose Not my phone if it does not match. The phone's video stays out of previews and recordings until you accept. Video travels over WebRTC on your local network straight from the phone to the Mac, as a vertical 1080x1920 stream at up to 30 fps. Audio comes from the Mac's microphone.
You can switch between the Back and Front camera while live, for example the rear camera for a product shot and the front for talking to the viewer. The phone camera is a normal camera layer, so Follow face, layouts, masks and background removal all apply. The full walkthrough is in using your iPhone as a camera for reels.
Step 2: Switch to 9:16 and pick a layout
In the editor, change the canvas to 9:16. Then choose how the camera and the screen share the frame:
- A full-camera layout. The camera fills the frame. Good for talking-head clips where the screen is not essential.
- A stacked layout. The camera sits on top and the screen recording below. Good for tutorials and app reactions.
Layouts are timeline objects, so you can use full camera for the intro and a stacked layout for the demo part. Every change is in the undo history.
After applying, scrub through the video. Check moments where you point at something on screen. In a stacked layout, the screen half is narrower than your original recording, so a zoom on the important control may be needed. The auto zoom guide explains how to add one.
Step 3: Tune Follow face
Open the camera settings. Follow face is on by default for camera layers, with the description "Keep your face in the visible area — it glides along when you move". While it is on, the face drives the visible area, so the manual visible-area control is hidden. Turn Follow face off if you want to set a fixed crop yourself.
Face detection runs on the Mac. The app uses the system face detector (Apple Vision on macOS) and falls back to a small on-device model when needed. Results are cached, so scrubbing back and forth does not repeat the analysis.
Step 4: Hide other faces in the screen recording
Screen recordings often show more people than you planned: participants in a video call, photos in a document, or someone else's webcam. Turn on Auto-blur faces, described as "Hides faces in the screen recording, such as video calls, photos and webcams". You find it in the Video settings and in the blur overlay panel.
Choose the effect:
- Blur softens the face while the scene stays recognizable.
- Pixelate is a stronger, clearly intentional cover.
- Solid covers the face completely.
Adjust Intensity for strength and Padding to cover a little more than the detected face, which helps with hair and fast movement. Before export, the app waits until the face scan of the screen recording has finished, so frames are not rendered with a face left uncovered.
Limitations and honest notes
- Follow face needs a camera in the project. Without a camera layer, there is no face to track; a screen-only recording is reframed with zoom instead.
- Follow face keeps a face in frame; it does not direct the edit. If two people share the camera frame, check that it follows the person you expect.
- Detection can miss faces. Strong side angles, very small faces and heavy motion blur are harder to detect. Watch the export once, especially for Auto-blur faces in sensitive material, and add a manual blur overlay where needed.
- Cropping reduces resolution. A vertical crop from a landscape camera uses only part of the camera image. For the sharpest result, record vertically with Phone Camera at 9:16.
- Phone Camera has session limits. The pairing link expires after 2 minutes, and a session lasts up to 6 hours.
Checklist before export
- The canvas is 9:16 and the layout fits the message.
- Your face stays in frame through the whole video.
- In a stacked layout, the important part of the screen is readable.
- Captions do not cover your face or the key control.
- Auto-blur faces covers every face that should be hidden, with enough padding.
- You checked the export once from start to finish.
Common questions
Does face tracking send my video to a server?
No. Detection runs on your Mac with the system face detector or an on-device fallback model.
Can I go back to the landscape version?
Yes. Layout and canvas changes are part of the undo history, and you can switch the canvas back to 16:9 at any time.
Do I need the iPhone for this?
No. Follow face and the vertical layouts work with any camera layer. The iPhone is an option when you want a vertical, higher-quality camera image.
Keep going
See the face tracking camera page for an overview, the iPhone camera for reels page for Phone Camera, and the webcam recording page for camera layouts. To remove the background behind you, see camera background removal. When the vertical cut is ready, schedule it to YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram and X.