Presenter camera
Put yourself in the demo. DemoTake records your camera beside the screen, or uses a video of you narrating afterwards, and shows it as a bubble, side by side or full frame, following every cut.
A face makes a demo feel like someone is showing you around. DemoTake can record your camera while it records the screen, or take a video of you narrating a take afterwards, and draw it on the video. Like the pointer and captions, the presenter is drawn at render time: move it, restyle it or turn it off at any point, and nothing you recorded changes.
Record your camera
In the Record view, open the Session panel and turn on Presenter Camera → Record camera. Pick a camera if you have more than one. macOS asks for camera access the first time you record with it; DemoTake never opens the camera before that.
Each scene records its own camera file next to its screen recording. Because both share the scene's timeline, the camera follows your edits exactly: trimmed, cut or sped-up parts of the screen are trimmed, cut or sped up in the camera too, and a hold freezes both. Retaking a scene records a new camera file with it.
A small round view shows your camera while a scene records, and the recording controls and the menu bar show a camera sign whenever the camera is recording. The microphone is recorded as before (Settings → Recording); turn it on to narrate live.
The camera only ever turns on because you chose it: your Record camera switch, or an agent you allowed (see below). Replays, scheduled re-recording runs and AI Director runs never record the camera, even when the take was recorded with it; scenes they record again have no camera clip.
Use a video recorded afterwards
Narrating an agent's take is easier after it's done. In the editor, open Effects → Presenter and choose Import Presenter Video… (a .mov, .mp4 or .m4v, also from a phone). The video plays in real time on the finished cut, with its sound. Set Starts at to the second of the cut where its first frame should play; a negative value skips its start. Turn Presenter sound off to keep only the picture.
Layouts
| Layout | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Bubble | A circle or rounded square in a corner. Drag it on the stage to place it anywhere |
| Side by Side | The screen and you next to each other; stacked in 9:16 |
| Presenter Only | You fill the frame, for an intro or outro scene |
Select a scene to give it its own layout under This scene: Hidden leaves you out of that scene, Presenter Only makes it an intro. The other settings are Size (small, medium, large), Shape, Side for side by side, Border (none, white, or the take's accent), Shadow and Mirror (on for your own camera, so it looks like a mirror; off for imported videos).
Background blur and removal
Background can blur the room behind you or replace it with the take's background. DemoTake for Mac finds you in each frame with Apple's on-device person segmentation when it renders; nothing is sent anywhere. Quality trades speed for cleaner edges: Fast for long takes, Accurate for the cleanest hair and hands (slower exports). It's off by default.
DemoTake Web shows the presenter in its preview and exports, but draws the camera as recorded: blur and removal appear in exports from DemoTake for Mac.
Privacy
Your camera footage is personal data. It stays inside the take like the microphone track, on your Mac, and goes to DemoTake Cloud only when you sync the take. Posters and thumbnails come from the edited video, so a scene where you hid the presenter never shows you.
For agents
Agents can record the camera only after the person using the Mac turns on Settings › Privacy › Allow agents to use the camera (off by default). Then: capture_start { "take_id": "take_…", "camera": true } (or take_create { …, "presenter": { "camera": true } }). Without it, camera: true fails with a reason, and a take whose camera setting is on records without the camera and says so in the capture's notes. targets_capabilities lists the cameras for camera_device and says whether agents are allowed (presenter_camera.agents_allowed). take_replay, spec_run and scheduled runs never record the camera.
{ "tool": "presenter_set", "arguments": { "take_id": "take_…", "layout": "bubble", "corner": "bottom_right", "background": "blur" } }Give a scene its own layout with { "scene": "Intro", "layout": "full" } ("hidden", or "inherit" to follow the take), drag the bubble with "position": { "x": 0.85, "y": 0.8 }, and import a narration with presenter_import { "take_id": "take_…", "path": "/Users/…/founder.mov", "offset": 1.5 }. From the terminal: demotake presenter take_… --layout split.