How To Do The Vertigo Effect (Dolly Zoom) in Your Videos - Video Tutorial

Vertigo Effect - DIY Dolly
You've probably seen the vertigo effect in many movies. It's actually a combination of closing in (track shot) and zooming out. Or vice-versa - drawing out (away) from the subject and zooming in at the same time. 

Normally, the zooming is done optically. But we, as amateurs, may have a hard time zooming out the image without shaking the camera. Especially since we work with small cams - I use the Sony HX9V.

So how do we do it? We crop the footage in our video editing software - I prefer Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus.



In Magix Movie Edit Pro we go to Effects/Movement Effects/Camera Zoom and we work with keyframes.

Let's consider we're working on a clip where you close in on the subject using a slider.

Pico Dolly


We only set two keyframes for each clip. First, you crop the footage and set that as start keyframe. Don't crop too much of the clip or you'll get the image pixelated (you're basically lowering resolution when you crop the image).

Then go all the way to the end of the clip and drag the cropping handles as to contain the full resolution image - this is the second keyframe.

Save. Export. And that's about it.

KeyFrames in Mgix Movie Edit Pro Plus

Now you can add more drama to your outdoor videos with the dolly-zoom effect.

DIY Camera Slider and Sony HX9V

Dolly Zoom on DIY Slider

Contra Zoom - Dolly Zoom Animated GIF

Get Magix and do it too.


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