From screen recording to cinematic app preview in five minutes

A cinematic app preview looks like it took a week: a device gliding through a lit studio, a slow camera push, your UI playing crisply on the screen. The secret is that you already have everything you need to make one — your app and a browser. No After Effects, no 3D software, no plugins, nothing to install.

Mockpose turns a single screenshot or screen recording into a cinematic 3D device mockup — an animated app-preview video or a set of pixel-perfect App Store screenshots — entirely in your browser. In this tutorial, we'll go from a raw recording to an exported MP4 in six short steps. Set aside five minutes.

Step 1: Record your app

Start with the footage, because everything else builds on it. On iPhone, use the built-in screen recording from Control Center. Prefer to work from your desk? Record the Simulator from Xcode, or capture any window with QuickTime on a Mac.

A clean 15–30 second take of one flow is plenty. A preview that shows one thing well always beats a frantic tour of every feature.

A few things worth doing before you hit record:

• Hide sensitive data — use a demo account, and switch on Do Not Disturb so a notification doesn't photobomb the take.
• Rehearse the flow once. Calm, deliberate taps read as intentional on camera; hesitation doesn't.
• Don't worry about the start and end — you'll trim both in a minute.

Step 2: Open Mockpose in your browser

That's the whole step. Mockpose runs entirely in the browser, so there's nothing to download and no environment to set up — you can even try it without signing up. Open the editor and you're standing in a 3D studio.

Step 3: Pick a template — or start from scratch

The fastest route is a template. There are more than 100 of them: device grids, rows, spirals, hero moves that push in on a single phone. Pick one that matches the story you want to tell — calm and product-led, or bold and kinetic — and your scene is already animated.

Prefer full control? Start from a blank scene with a single device and build up from there.

Step 4: Drop your recording onto the screen

Drag your recording onto the device's screen. It becomes a clip you can trim right on the timeline: cut to the good part, add a fade in or out, and it stays locked to the shot as the camera moves. If your take ran long, this is where you keep only the ten seconds that matter.

Pro tip: trim aggressively. The strongest previews get to the point within the first two seconds.

Step 5: Make the scene yours

Now the fun part. Choose a background from more than 100 animated scenes and 30 gradients, adjust the lighting until the device sits naturally in it, and tweak the camera move — or edit the keyframes directly on the timeline if you want something custom.

One rule of thumb: slow the camera down. A slower move almost always reads as more premium than a fast one. We wrote a whole guide on cinematic camera moves if you want to go deeper.

Step 6: Export

Hit export and choose your format: MP4 up to 4K at 60 fps, or pixel-perfect stills for your store listing. Everything is encoded locally in your browser — your footage never has to leave your machine, and there's no render queue to wait in.

Playback is deterministic, so what you previewed is exactly what exports, frame for frame. App Store preview durations are honored exactly: a 30-second preview is exactly 30 seconds, every time.

On the free plan you get the full editor and exports up to 720p with a small watermark; premium unlocks 4K, watermark-free exports and more.

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That's it — recording to cinematic preview, five minutes, one browser tab. If you're planning a launch, our guide to app preview videos covers what to put in those 30 seconds. Ready to try it with your own app? Open Mockpose and drop your recording in.