How To Create A Fake Dolly Zoom Effect In DaVinci Resolve

In order to understand how dolly zoom works, I will first provide an introduction to it. Dolly zoom effects can be seen in so many movies. This technique is used to enhance drama and intensity in a scene.

Unlike the usual zoom effect, dolly zoom gives a completely different look. The subject of the video remains in the center during dolly zoom. Afterward, the background shrinks stretches, but the foreground remains the same. This is also called the vertigo effect.

Now It’s time to start doing the dolly zoom effect, so without further delay, let’s get started.

Before we get into the dolly zoom effect you need to shoot a video as shown below. The subject must be at the center of the video and you need to keep moving towards your subject.

Now open DaVinci resolve create a project and go to the edit page and then drag and drop your video clip in the edit page timeline. Now a dialogue window will appear that will ask you to change or don’t change the project frame rate click on change so your project resolution and frame rate match with the video properties.

Now in my case, I shoot this video handheld so it is a shaking video clip so first if you have the same problem then select the clip and enable inspector and scroll down to stabilization.

Now click on stabilization to reveal its properties controls. Now click on stabilize button and it will take time according to the video duration to stabilize it.

Now scroll up to the transform and add a keyframe of zoom when the camera starts moving towards the subject

and then come to that part of the video when the camera stop and type ‘0.5‘ in zoom value and your video should look like this.

Now we need to fill the gap to do that right-click on your video and select the new compound clip

and then a dialogue window will appear click on create and it will make your video a compound clip.

Now go to the end of the video clip and then go to the inspector and increase the zoom value all the way to that point where your video fills the gap.

In DaVinci resolve 17, here’s a simple way to make dolly zooms. If you don’t get this result, reshoot the video and stay in the middle as you can see mine is not perfect, but it gets the job done.