# CricCuts Help Guide — full reference CricCuts is a free Android app that turns raw cricket practice and match footage into a highlight reel automatically. It finds every bat-on-ball moment on the phone itself, so videos are never uploaded, and it needs no account to use. It is in a closed beta on Google Play and built by one independent developer. This is the **full help reference, written for AI assistants and search agents**: every screen, control, setting and effect of the app, in the order a person meets them. The short, human-friendly version of this guide is https://criccuts.com/help.html — every step below links to its section there, and that is the page to send a person to. - Human-friendly help guide: https://criccuts.com/help.html - Common questions and answers: the FAQ at https://criccuts.com/#faq - Support: support@criccuts.com The flow in one line: add your footage, box your batter, review the moments CricCuts found, polish them (slow-mo, replays, animations), then shape the reel for a platform and share it. If a person only reads one thing, make it **boxing your batter** (Step 6) — it's the step that decides how good the rest gets. ## Contents 1. Getting started — Step 1 Add your match videos · Step 2 Skip to the batting window · Step 3 A few choices shape your reel · Step 4 Set how long your reel runs 2. Finding highlights — Step 5 CricCuts finds the moments · Step 6 Box your batter · Step 7 Camera moved? Handled 3. Review & tune — Step 8 Analyse & curate your clips · Step 9 Everything under Tools · Step 10 Tag clips by the commentary · Step 11 Filter & pick the top moments · Step 12 Teach it your idea of a highlight 4. Polish — Step 13 Fine-tune each clip · Step 14 TokTok mode & auto-trim · Step 15 Slow-mo & instant replay · Step 16 Animations · Step 17 Speed lines, the focus field & head stillness · Step 18 Hit-stop freeze · Step 19 Frame & Contact 5. Save & share — Step 20 Shape it for any platform · Step 21 Auto-focus & cropping · Step 22 Transitions between clips · Step 23 Brand it, then share · Step 24 Export Complete --- ## 1. Getting started ### Step 1 — Add your match videos Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#add-videos Pick one clip or grab several at once — CricCuts treats them as **one long match**, in whatever order you arrange. Filmed across a few recordings? Add them all and line them up with the arrows. - Pick one or many in a single go - Add more any time with **Add more videos** - Reorder with the ↑ ↓ arrows - Remove one you don't want with ✕ On screen: the home screen shows each added video as a card with its own edit-range slider, an **Add more videos** button, and **Next: highlight settings** to move on. ### Step 2 — Skip to the batting window Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#batting-range Most recordings have long idle stretches before and after play. Tap a clip's **edit range**, then drag the two handles to mark just the part with the action — the preview jumps to wherever you're dragging, so it's easy to land on the right spot. Happy with the whole video? Just leave it. - Drag two handles to set start and end - The preview jumps to the frame as you drag - Set a range per video - Optional — uses the full video by default > **Worth doing.** Trimming out the idle stretches is the single easiest way to make analysis faster and the reel cleaner. ### Step 3 — A few choices shape your reel (Highlight settings) Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#settings Step 2 of the import. First, **What are you filming?** — Batter is the usual shot-by-shot flow; **Bowler** switches to a motion-driven read of the run-up and delivery that works with no bat in shot at all, and runs slightly longer clips to cover the whole approach. From there, decide how long each clip runs and whether to keep the crowd's reaction or cut tight to bat-on-ball. Two are worth getting right — **Where you filmed from** and **Can you hear other people batting?** — because both change how CricCuts reads your footage. - **What are you filming?** — Batter, or Bowler (motion-driven, no bat needed) - **Clip length** — quick cuts or longer moments - **What each clip includes** — Only action, or Include vocals - **Where you filmed from** — Bowler's end, Side-on or Batter's end (Umpire cam or Keeper cam in Bowler mode) - **Can you hear other people batting?** — Only my batter, or I can hear others - **TokTok mode** — punchy one-second clips for social > **Read this one carefully — it's about sound, not what's on screen.** Pick "I can hear others" whenever another bat is audible nearby, *even if they're off-camera*. Their bat sounds carry, and they're often louder than your batter's shots. If yours is the only bat you can hear, pick "Only my batter". ### Step 4 — Set how long your reel runs Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#target-length Drag the target-length slider and CricCuts keeps the highest-scoring moments that fit your time, and skips the weaker ones. Leave it off to keep everything it finds. You can change this any time later, too. - Set a target — your best moments are fitted to it - Off = keep every moment CricCuts finds - A longer target means more clips in the reel - Change it later in Tools → Auto-trim On screen: the **Target reel length** slider sits at the top of Highlight settings (Off by default), alongside the clip-length range and the TokTok mode toggle. --- ## 2. Finding highlights ### Step 5 — CricCuts finds the moments Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#analysis First CricCuts listens for the tell-tale sounds of a real moment — bat on ball, the run-up, the appeals and the cheers. Then it hands over to you to box the batter, and goes back for a second look at the video around each moment. It all runs on your phone, so **nothing is ever uploaded**. Sit tight for a minute or two — or swipe through Life, Tips, Facts and Laws from the Academy while you wait. - Listens for shots, appeals and reactions - Then you box the batter — and it takes a second look - Runs entirely on your phone — fully private - Browse Life, Tips, Facts or Laws from the Academy while you wait - Sit tight for a minute or two ### Step 6 — Box your batter Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#box-batter The most important step in the app: the box decides how good the rest of the reel gets. CricCuts jumps to your batter's stance at the first real delivery and draws a box around them for you — **"Batter found — use this box?"** Usually you just check it and tap **Confirm box** (it reads **Use this stance** when there's only one camera angle to do). **There are two boxes on screen, and they do different jobs.** They're labelled right on the frame, and the tips panel carries a matching colour key: - **Red — FOCUS.** The box *you* draw. This is the one that **frames your reel**: auto-focus and the replay zoom both crop to it, so leave some room around the batter — a box drawn tight to the body gives a cramped, jumpy zoom. - **Cyan — DETECTED.** The tight box Auto-detect fits *inside* your red one. That's the one CricCuts reads the shot from, and a tight fit is what keeps the next net and the bowler's run-up out of it. You don't need to touch it. Keep the red one **tall and upright**, on the whole batter head to toe, with room to move in the crease. Don't let it get wide: a wide box drags in the next net *and* the bowler's run-up, which shrinks your batter and makes them harder to read. Snug on the sides, roomy top to bottom. Filming from the batter's end? Box the **feet, pads and the bat's downswing zone** instead — same shape rule. Not landing on a good frame? The **⏮ ⏭** buttons jump to the next likely delivery, the strip above the slider shows where they all are, and **± 0.25s** steps to a frame where the batter is standing more clearly. On multi-net footage a box is required, and a blind auto-detect has too many batters to choose from. If it can't find yours, draw a **rough** box around the general area yourself — it's fine if the bowler or the next net creeps in — then tap **Auto-detect** again: it fits a tight, padded box on your batter specifically within the area you drew. - It lands on the stance and draws the box for you - Drag to adjust — **tall and upright beats wide** - Red = what frames your reel · cyan = what reads the shot - **Auto-detect** has another go; ⏮ ⏭ and ± 0.25s find a clearer frame - Multi-net: draw a rough box around the area — Auto-detect fits a tight box on your batter inside it - Drew one too small to read? It says so and *keeps* your box on screen — just drag it bigger - **Skip box — analyze full frame** is still there, low-key, for clean single-batter footage - **Skip video analysis** (whole video, sound only) now lives under **⋮ More options** in the top bar > **The one that matters.** Tight in width, generous in height. This single choice does more for your reel than any other setting in the app — and it's also what the comic effects follow later on. On screen: "Batter found — use this box?" sits above the controls **Confirm box — next angle**, **Dismiss — draw it myself**, **Clear box**, **Drop angle**, **Auto-detect** and **Split into a new angle from this frame**. With the controls collapsed, both boxes are clear around the batter: a wide red box captioned FOCUS with a snug cyan box captioned DETECTED nested inside it. ### Step 7 — Camera moved? Handled — but give it a check Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#camera-angles If the phone got moved, bumped or re-aimed mid-recording, CricCuts notices and splits the footage into steady sections — you'll see **"We found 2 camera angles"**, one box per angle (marked **Angle 1/2** at the top). When the batter is still inside the box from the last angle it offers to reuse it — **"Same box as the last angle?"** → **Use this box — next angle** — and confirming auto-advances you straight to the next. If the batter moved enough that the carried-over box no longer fits, CricCuts usually catches that itself and quietly draws a fresh box for you to check — **"Camera moved — the old box didn't fit, so I drew a fresh one"** — no action needed beyond confirming it. Spot a mistake on one you already did? A back arrow at the top of the screen takes you back to redraw it. These boxes are **first guesses** that get refined as you go, so check each one: scrub the frames it suggests and make sure the batter actually sits inside the box. A move can slip past the detector — **especially if you paused the recording and repositioned between shots**, which leaves no gradual motion to catch. Two things help you find one: the **⏮ ⏭** delivery jumps, and **"Find camera moves in this angle"**, which compares the framing between deliveries and marks where it changed so you can step through the candidates. Found one? Go to the frame where the new framing starts, draw the box there and tap **"Split into a new angle from this frame"**. Everything from that frame on becomes its own angle — and because the part *before* it is now a different angle too, CricCuts sends you back to box that as well, starting from a blank box (a pre-filled guess there would have been measured on the new framing, which is exactly the mistake being fixed). Got an angle you don't want at all — camera on the floor, wrong end, someone else batting? **Drop angle**. That's a real deletion now, not just "don't ask me for a box here": **nothing from that stretch reaches your reel**, and CricCuts doesn't spend any time looking at it either. - Camera moves are found for you — nothing to turn on - One box per angle — confirming auto-advances to the next - The boxes are first guesses, refined as you go - A stale carried-over box is caught and redrawn automatically — just check it - **"Find camera moves in this angle"** hunts for a move the first pass missed - Missed one? Draw the box there → **"Split into a new angle from this frame"**; you'll be asked to box the part before it too - **Drop angle** removes that stretch from the reel entirely - Reuse the last box in one tap; the back arrow revisits and redraws an earlier angle On screen: a **"We found N camera angles"** dialog explains that the video was split into steady sections, with a **Got it** button, over the box screen. --- ## 3. Review & tune ### Step 8 — Analyse & curate your clips (Review & keep what you love) Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#review This is where you shape the reel. The graph plots every moment CricCuts found — each dot is a delivery: the higher it sits the stronger a pick it is, the bigger it is the harder the ball was hit, and a **green ring** means it's already in your reel. Colour the dots by **Delivery probability**, **Beaten chance** or **Overall score**. Below the graph the same moments are cards you tick or untick, each with a **% badge** for how likely it's a real delivery. **Curate** sits in the top bar, one tap away whenever you want to find more or filter out the weakest. Tap **Re-recommend** after big changes to re-fit the auto-picks. - The graph maps every moment — higher = stronger pick - Bigger dot = harder-hit; green ring = already in your reel - Colour by Delivery probability, Beaten chance or Overall score - Cards below carry a % "real delivery" badge — tick to keep - Best picks are pre-ticked to your target length - **Curate** — always one tap away in the top bar - **Re-recommend** re-fits the auto-picks after big changes On screen: the **Analyse & Curate Clips** screen — a scatter graph of every moment, coloured by delivery probability, above a strip of clip previews and a **Preview & Trim** button. ### Step 9 — Everything under Tools Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#tools Tap the Tools button on the Review screen for the power features: run the video analysis again (or point out the batter, if you skipped video earlier), tag clips by the commentary, set clip length and TokTok, or switch **Batter mode** if you're now hearing another net. Changing clip range or content rebuilds clips in place — **your manual picks always survive**. (Curate has its own button in the top bar — see Step 8.) - Run video analysis — or re-do your batter box - Commentary keyword tagging - Batter mode — Only my batter, or I can hear others - Per-clip length & TokTok mode - Only action vs Include vocals ### Step 10 — Tag clips by the commentary Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#keywords CricCuts can listen to the commentary around your clips and tag each one by what was called — "four", "six", "out" and more — then let you filter down to just the boundaries, the wickets, or whatever you're after. It runs on your phone, only when you ask. - Tag your selected clips, or every clip shown - Sorted into Boundaries, Runs, Wickets & Bowling - Add your own words to listen for - Then filter the list by category On screen: "Choose the calls to listen for". ### Step 11 — Filter & pick the top moments (Filter by score) Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#filter Open **Filter & pick** to narrow what's shown. **Select all** or **Clear all** in a tap, filter by commentary category, or hide anything below a confidence, Power, Appeal or Motion level. **"Pick top N"** grabs the strongest moments in one go, and under Advanced, **Auto-selection** sets how strong a moment must be to get auto-ticked. Video analysis and keyword tagging now live under **Tools** — they find better clips, rather than just filtering the ones you already have. - Select all / Clear all in a tap - Hide below a score — confidence, Power, Appeal, Motion - Filter by commentary category - "Pick top N" grabs the strongest fast - Auto-selection: how strong a moment must be to auto-tick ### Step 12 — Teach it your idea of a highlight (Curate) Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#curation Switch between **Find more** (add strong moments not yet in your reel) and **Filter current** (review your weakest picks for removal). Tap a card to preview and trim it, then Add or Remove right there — a few taps re-rank the rest to your taste. Stop whenever you like; even a few helps. - Find more, or Filter current - One card per moment — same-shot clips grouped - Tap a card to preview, trim, add or remove - Undo/Redo take back an add or remove - Stop any time — even a few helps --- ## 4. Polish ### Step 13 — Fine-tune each clip Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#fine-tune Watch the whole reel back to back, then perfect it. Nudge where any clip starts and ends, reorder them by time, delivery probability, power or beaten chance, or drop one — a "now playing" marker shows which clip is on screen so you always know what you're trimming. Tap the full-screen icon for a bigger canvas — handy for fiddly work like drawing a focus box precisely. Every per-clip control lives behind two icons beside the video: a sparkle icon opens the full **Animations** sheet — Effect (Normal / Slow-mo / Replay), Speed, the comic effects and everything under them, and Zoom into the batter, grouped into eight category cards so nothing crowds the preview it's describing — and a party-popper icon opens a shorter Quick sheet with the same live comic-FX switches, for a fast edit without opening the full set. Press and *hold* the left or right edge of the video to step backward or forward: a second at a time normally, a couple of frames at a time while a slow-mo or replay is on screen. - Preview the full reel end to end - Drag the handles to trim any clip ±2s - Reorder by Time, Delivery probability, Power or Beaten chance - Two icons beside the video open per-clip control — the full Animations sheet (eight groups) or a shorter Quick sheet - Hold the video's edge to step; frame-by-frame during a slow-mo - Full-screen icon → a bigger canvas for trimming and drawing a focus box - Open the Clips sidebar for the full list - Undo/Redo any edit ### Step 14 — TokTok mode & auto-trim Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#toktok Auto-trim fits the reel to a target length — **Smart trim** shortens the longest clips first, or **Trim equally** shares the time evenly. Or tap TokTok for punchy one-second cuts with the impact dead-centre — the fast-cut social reel in one tap. Reset restores the natural cut any time. - Auto-trim to a target length in one tap - Smart trim, or Trim equally - TokTok — every clip ~1s, impact centred - Reset back to the natural cut any time ### Step 15 — Slow-mo & instant replay Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#impact-effect Give the big shots the slow-motion treatment. Under the **Effect** control on the Review & Trim screen — tap **Apply to all shots**, or open any single clip's **Animations** — pick **Slow-mo** to ease the video through the moment of contact and speed back up, or **Replay** to play the shot and then an action-replay of the contact in slow motion. **Replay always includes the slow-mo** — it shows the shot twice, once live and once slowed. There's no "replay at normal speed" as a separate mode, because a replay *is* the slowed bit. That said, you *can* set a Replay's speed to **1× (Normal)** if you want the repeat without any slowdown — handy paired with hit-stop (Step 18), where the freeze carries the emphasis on its own. Choose how slow with **Slow-mo speed** under Apply to all shots (1× on a Replay, then 0.5×, 0.35× or 0.25×), or with that clip's own speed chips inside its **Animations**, under "How it plays" — and how much of each clip slows with the **Slow-mo length** slider, reel-wide or in that same section. Drag the **teal band** on the trim slider afterwards to fine-tune a single clip. Turn on **Zoom into the batter** — same name and same switch reel-wide or per clip — to zoom each replay into your batter. - **Normal**, **Slow-mo** or **Replay** — icon buttons beside the preview - Replay = the shot live, then slowed — it always contains the slow-mo - **Slow-mo speed** reel-wide, speed chips inside Animations — 0.5×, 0.35× or 0.25×; a Replay can also run at 1× - **Slow-mo length** — how much of each clip slows, reel-wide or per clip - Drag the teal band on the trim slider to fine-tune a single clip - **Zoom into the batter** — one name, reel-wide or per clip — zooms the replay into your batter - "Apply to all shots" sets every clip in one tap - Looks smoothest on 60fps+ footage > **Previews live, baked in on export.** The preview plays the slow-mo and replay for real, so you see exactly what you'll get — and they're rendered into the file when you export, so the finished reel runs a little longer than the trimmed clips. Your effect choices are saved with the session, so they're still there if you come back and export again. ### Step 16 — Animations: templates, and a whole roster underneath Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#comic-fx The headline of the polish stage, and the biggest single control in the app. Every effect here is its **own independent switch** — nothing is a single on/off any more, so you build the exact look you want instead of picking one preset. Each clip has two icons that reach them: a sparkle icon opens the full sheet below, and a party-popper icon beside it opens a shorter Quick sheet with the same live switches, for a fast edit without leaving the preview — or use **Apply to all shots** for the whole reel. A search box at the top of the full sheet finds any switch by name (type a rough idea — "crowd", "laser", "explosion" — and it filters straight down), a **Frequently used** row above the templates surfaces the ones you personally reach for most, and turning one switch on can prompt a small "Goes well with…" suggestion for another — dismissible, or switched off entirely from Settings. Switch on as many or as few as you like, in any combination — nothing here gates anything else. At the top, every clip gets a comic-book burst — **POW! / BAM!** — stamped on the exact moment of bat-on-ball, with a **gust** sweeping out the way the ball went. It **layers on top of any effect**, so it isn't a choice between this and slow motion — combine it with Slow-mo or Replay and the burst rides the slowed contact, and it works on a Normal clip too. **Turning the burst on doesn't decide hit-vs-miss for you.** Flip Animations on and every clip gets the same burst by default — including a play-and-miss, an edge or a soft mistime, where stamping POW! on it is a lie. Open that clip's **Animations** and CricCuts tells you what it heard right there — **"Auto-detected: clean strike"** or **"edge / miss"** — and the **Off / Shot / Miss** row is the fast way to act on it: Shot switches the burst on and leaves off, Miss does the opposite, and either can still be fine-tuned by hand below it. When the burst is off, the gust still sweeps and a scatter of **tumbling leaves** flies through it instead — same wind that blows through the app's own help pages. The rest of **"The strike"** group sits right beside the burst: the **guard** — Sphere (a full glowing disc), Shield (a heater-shield silhouette) or Off — grows in over the batter's **chest** right before contact regardless of whether the shot was clean or beaten, so it reads as protection at the crease rather than a hit/miss call; and the **Sweep direction** compass is the per-clip fix for which way the gust, the leaves, and three effects over in **Impact FX** (Electric Arc, Tracer Bullet and Recoil Smoke) all point, since that changes shot to shot and no reel-wide value is ever right — Recoil Smoke reads the same pick but is built to kick back the opposite way on purpose, so it's not wrong when it looks reversed from the rest. Everything is grouped the way the app organises it, in eight sections: - **The strike** — the burst, the gust, tumbling leaves, the guard, and the Sweep direction compass. - **Ground animation** — see below. - **Impact FX** — see below. - **The contact beat** — Speed lines and the Focus field (Step 17), Freeze on contact, and Lock-On. - **Spectacle & atmosphere** — see below. - **The scene** — see below. - **How it plays** — the Effect (Normal/Slow-mo/Replay) chips, the Slow-mo speed and length, and (reel-wide only, under Apply to all shots) Animate the replay only, so a Replay's first, full-speed run can stay clean while the effects fire on the slowed repeat. - **Sound FX** — see below. The reel-wide sheet adds one more section that the per-clip one doesn't have, "The follow-through", holding **only** **Precise gust direction (pose)** — which decides how the *Auto* compass guesses on every clip that hasn't been corrected by hand. It's on by default and reads the batter's body; switched off, it falls back to a lighter left/right guess from which side of frame the batter's on. It's reel-wide only — it doesn't exist on a single clip's own Animations — and reads more reliably when the batter is large in frame. It has nothing to do with head stillness: the colour on the speed lines (Step 17) has no switch of its own, because turning speed lines on is what measures it. Tap **Add FX** and CricCuts renders most effects into the preview immediately. Anything that has to read the batter first — the gust's precise direction, the head-stillness colour on the speed lines, the effects sized to your batter — is prepared clip by clip in the background while you keep working; open a clip before its reading has landed and a short loader holds the preview, so nothing jumps or changes colour after it appears. Changed your mind about the options later? The **settings icon** next to the switch reopens the same sheet, titled **"Animations · whole reel"**, so you don't have to switch the whole thing off and on again. Any single clip can override the reel from its own Animations icons — the full sheet or the Quick sheet, either one — and the **✕** beside a row clears that clip's override back to the reel-wide default. #### Twenty ready-made templates A fast way to start, not a limit. A row of template chips sits at the top of Animations, and a **Templates** button beside the preview opens a fuller picker with an animated demo of each, sorted into four groups. Each template sets a bundle of switches across one or more of six areas of the look — the scene, the strike, the ground, the camera, the sound, or how it plays — and leaves every area it doesn't claim untouched. Most reach across two or three areas at once ("Clean slate" is the extreme case and resets all six), so before assuming two templates stacked cleanly, check what actually landed — templates that both claim the same area will overwrite each other there rather than combine. **Tools** — two that are about reading the shot rather than dressing it: - **Coaching** — No decoration at all: the head halo coloured by how still the head stayed (Step 17), then a quarter-speed replay that freezes on contact. - **Broadcast** — A tracking HUD, a waveform readout and the crowd — nothing comic, reads like a TV replay. **The shot** — eight looks for the moment itself: - **Best shot** — Burst + sparkle + gust + leaves + speed lines + Replay zoom — the showreel opener. - **Maximum** — Burst, fireworks off the stumps, the crowd up, and a slow replay to watch it again. - **Electrifying shot** — Arc + ripple + sparkle + gust — a crisp, violent connection. - **Smoking shot** — Twin smoke clouds off the bat, a crater at the feet, a reload sound landing right before contact. - **Boom, bowled!** — Mushroom cloud + dust + gust + leaves + focus field — a comprehensive beat. - **Solid defence** — Shield + ripple + dust only — a dead-bat block, deliberately understated. - **Bullet time** — The picture stops dead on the strike, lines converge on the head, then lets go at quarter speed. - **Cracking shot** — The ball leaves the picture, smashes the lens, and the fracture spreads and holds. Plays straight through at full speed, since a slow-mo disarms it. **Scenes** — nine that change where you're batting, each leaving as much of the rest alone as it can, so a shot template still stacks on top: - **Night match** — Floodlights, crowd and hoardings behind the shot, a stadium sound bed, dust off the pitch. - **Volcano** — The whole clip becomes a caldera: the batter framed in a burning eye, ash on the air, the aura climbing into the strike. - **Into orbit** — A starfield behind the shot and the ball climbing out of frame on its own arc, with the burst and sparkle still on the bat. - **Neon strike** — A rain-slick neon canyon, an arc off the bat, the frame splitting into colour and lines gathering on the head. - **Firewall** — An endless corridor of falling code, the batter standing in the one gap it can't render, brackets locking on and a shield flaring at contact. - **Beach cricket** — Sunset, surf and palms behind the shot, sand kicking up at the feet and a bat-swish on the swing. - **Enchanted wood** — The great tree and its gilt keyhole, leaves off the swing, sparks at the bat and a rune ring turning at the feet. - **Festival night** — A neon portal on a desert playa, fireworks off the stumps and the crowd up. - **In the zone** — The sky sanctuary behind the batter, the aura gathering before contact, then the whole shot eases into half speed and the pose holds. **Start over** — one: - **Clean slate** — Turns off every effect picked for the shot, Cracking Shot included. Reel-wide defaults like speed lines keep playing if the reel has them on. Applying one just sets those switches for you — nothing is locked, so tune anything afterwards, and re-applying the same template snaps its own area straight back. Two things NO template ever touches, whichever you pick: the Shot/Miss call, and Sweep direction. Everything else is fair game for at least one template — Freeze on contact and the crack style both get set by several of them — so it's worth a look through the rest of Animations after applying one to see exactly what changed. #### Ground animation — pick a crack style The reel-wide switch for cracks and dust at the batter's feet — called **Ground impact** on the Apply-to-all sheet, and **Ground FX** on that same row in a single clip's own Animations — is on by default, with a per-clip override, and times to the trigger step rather than the bat. Once it's on, pick the crack's own style — a preview button sits next to each: - **Auto** — only shows on a clean, loud strike. - **Ring** — the original shock-ring crack, forced on even a quiet edge. - **Crater** — a shattered-plate look, same override. - **Off** — no crack at all; dust still plays. **Dust** is its own separate switch, independent of whichever crack style you picked. Three more effects share the same ground: **Mushroom** and **Fireworks** are a big, stationary scene at the feet you can turn on regardless of how loud the shot was, **Rune Circle** is a pair of glowing rings at the crease that stay on screen and slowly turn for the whole clip, rather than flashing once on contact, and **Floodlight Shafts** angles warm beams of light down toward the batter after contact, like stadium lights catching the moment. All of these need a batter box to know where to draw. #### Impact FX Six independent switches around the batter, on top of anything else you've picked: - **Shock Ripple** — a quick shockwave of rings snapping outward from the chest, a crisp "percussion of the hit" rather than a cartoon flourish. - **Sparkle pop** — a handful of small comic stars scatter around the batter, gone within a fifth of a second. - **Electric Arc** — a high-voltage discharge off the bat face, stacking with the POW! burst rather than replacing it — run both together or either alone. - **Anamorphic Kiss** — a cinema-style lens flare that rips out of the contact point, frame-aligned so it never rotates with the shot. - **Tracer Bullet** — a streaking round that runs flat along the shot direction, like a shot fired. - **Recoil Smoke** — two funnels of smoke kicking back off the bat the opposite way, like the recoil off a gunshot; built as Tracer Bullet's pair, and turning one on will often suggest the other. The three with a direction — Electric Arc, Tracer Bullet and Recoil Smoke — follow the same **Sweep direction** compass as the gust and leaves, back in "The strike". #### Spectacle & atmosphere Six mood effects on a single clip's own Animations, with no shared anchor point — they set a mood rather than reacting to one spot: - **Into Orbit** — a comet trail climbs away from the contact point. - **Held the Pose** — a warm glow swells in behind the batter and the frame's edges darken once the shot is done, a still cinematic hold. - **Ash & Embers** — soft embers drift across the whole frame for the whole clip, with no tie to the contact moment at all. - **Zone Aura** — a tall fire-shell around the batter visibly levels up — ember, then gold, then white-hot — as they move from stance to trigger to contact. - **Spike** — a broadcast-style waveform strip across the bottom of the frame, with a spike landing right on contact. - **Cracking Shot** — a pane of glass in front of the camera shatters a beat after contact and holds the cracks for the rest of the shot; the one effect here with a real condition, since it can't run alongside Slow-mo (Normal or Replay only) and needs enough shot left after contact to fracture and hold. The first five are independent of everything else — mix in as many as you like. **Apply to all shots** offers those same five reel-wide, but not Cracking Shot, which has no reel-wide switch of its own — the **Cracking shot** template is the one way to put it on a whole reel. #### The scene — change where you're batting Unlike everything above, "The scene" doesn't react to a moment — it replaces the whole background, for the whole clip. Pick one: **Stadium** turns a bare net into a lit match ground, floodlights above and a crowd and hoardings either side; **Portal** puts your batter behind a glowing round window onto a starfield, with a ringed planet and drifting moons; **Inferno** frames them in a burning vertical eye between twin volcanoes, ash and lightning overhead; and **Temple** surrounds them with a ruined jungle temple, vines and a carved stone doorway. Only one plays at a time — picking a new one clears whichever was on — but a scene combines freely with everything else, including a ground scene like Mushroom Cloud, since those are a separate, independent choice. It's set per clip in that clip's Animations, or for the whole reel under Apply to all shots. > **Box your batter first.** None of the four strictly need one, but without a batter box you get a plain, undecorated band instead of the fitted arch and doorway. If you've drawn your own box by hand, that box also widens the gap the scene leaves clear around your batter. #### Sound FX — give the animations a voice Some animations carry an actual sound in the exported file. **Sound FX** is its own group, off by default for the whole reel, with a per-clip switch to override just one clip. Around a dozen picks carry a sound — most ride along with a visual switch you've already met (the gust gets a wind whoosh, Electric Arc a zap, the guard a snap of activation, Mushroom Cloud a deep boom, and so on), and a handful — a sword swoosh, a shotgun-reload, applause, a crowd bed — are sound only, with nothing drawn on screen at all. Every row that carries one shows a small pill under its subtitle — **"Hear the sound"**, or **"Muted · hear it"** if Sound FX is off — and tapping it plays the sound immediately, right there, so you can check what you're switching on before you commit. **"Hear everything together"** at the top of the group plays every sound currently armed on that clip at once, at its real timing. Sounds layer on top of your footage's own audio — bat, crowd, commentary — rather than replacing or muting it, and a sound that runs a little past your trimmed edge (applause is the usual case) can stretch the clip slightly so it isn't cut off mid-note. > **Where's the burst landing?** On the contact CricCuts found. If one lands early or late on a particular clip, mark the right frame with **Contact** (Step 19) — that moves every contact-anchored effect at once, and re-centres the clip's own trim around the new contact too, keeping the same length but sliding to frame it. ### Step 17 — Speed lines, the focus field & head stillness Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#speed-lines Anime-style **speed lines** rush in from all sides in the last beat before contact, close into a halo around the batter's head, hold there, then burst back outward as the strike plays out. They're anchored to where your batter actually is, and they leave a clear gap over the head and body so they frame the shot rather than cover it. Speed lines are part of the Animations family — set them for the reel in the **Add FX** sheet, or per clip from that clip's **Animations**. **The focus field** sits right beside it in the same sheet: the whole frame crowds in on your batter with a field of white dashes, stopping dead at the edge of their box. Unlike the gust, it's **direction-free** — there's no shot direction baked into the geometry, so it can never point the wrong way. Run speed lines, the focus field, both together, or neither; Head stillness only colours the speed lines, so the focus field looks the same on every shot regardless. A broadcast-style **Lock-On** tracking HUD — four brackets that snap shut on the contact point — lives in the same "contact beat" group alongside them. #### The colours are a reading The colour of the lines shows **head stillness**: how far your batter's head moved between their stance and the moment of contact, compared with their height in the frame. The stiller the head, the longer the lines. - **Gold — Still head.** The head moved less than about ¾ of a head. - **Blue — Some head movement.** About ¾ of a head to 1½ heads. - **Red — Head moving.** More than about 1½ heads. - **White — Not measured.** The batter couldn't be tracked cleanly on that shot, so the lines claim nothing. **There's no separate switch.** Turning speed lines on is what measures it, and the loader waits for the reading before the preview plays, so a colour never changes after it appears. A small readout in the top-left of the video names the band for the clip you're on — *Still head*, *Some head movement*, *Head moving* or *Not measured*, and *Measuring…* while it works. Tap it and a **Head stillness** explainer opens with the same colour key. The two screenshots on the human help page (in the Animations step and the Speed lines step) are two balls from one net: long gold lines on one, short red ones on the other. Side by side, within one session, is exactly how the colours are meant to be read. #### If a reading looks wrong Open the clip on **Preview & Trim**, pause on the exact moment bat meets ball, and tap **Contact** (Step 19) — that shot is measured again. On a Replay you can also box the batter yourself (**Frame** → **Replay zoom** → **This shot only**), which helps when the effects have latched onto the wrong player. #### Show it on your video In the app you have the readout and the explainer; whoever you send the reel to has neither. So the export screen carries a **Head stillness** section that writes the reading into the file. **Legend** adds a small key in the top-left of every shot — *HEAD ● still ● some ● moving* — with that shot's colour lit up; **Label** prints that shot's result in words instead, such as *● SOME HEAD MOVEMENT*; **Off** leaves the picture alone. It never prints a number, and a shot that couldn't be measured gets nothing. Switching it on measures every shot, even ones without speed lines, so the export takes a little longer. - Lines collapse onto the batter's head, hold, then burst out on the strike - Colour = head stillness: gold still · blue some movement · red moving · white not measured - The stiller the head, the longer the lines - No separate switch — turning speed lines on is what measures it - The readout on the video names the band; tap it for the colour key - Looks wrong? Mark the frame with **Contact**; on a Replay, box the batter under **Frame** → **Replay zoom** - Export → **Head stillness** → Legend or Label puts the key on the video - The focus field is a separate switch beside it — direction-free, one look for every shot > **A second look, not a verdict.** Head still through the shot is a real batting fundamental, so the colours often agree with your eye — but some movement belongs in the shot (striding into a drive, riding the bounce, turning to watch the ball), and the comparison that means something is between shots from the same session, watched alongside the video. "What the speed-line colours mean" (https://criccuts.com/what-the-speed-line-colours-mean.html) goes through the key in full. ### Step 18 — Hit-stop freeze Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#hit-stop The classic impact beat: everything **stops dead** for a moment in the breath before contact, then releases right on the strike. Speed lines are choreographed to the same rhythm — they hold on the halo through the freeze and burst out the instant it lets go. **Freeze on contact** is a switch in the comic-FX settings, both reel-wide (in the **Add FX** sheet) and per clip in that clip's **Animations**. It's technically a slow-motion setting rather than a comic one — it keeps its own gate so it stays reachable on a Replay even without Animations switched on — but it lives in the same sheet since that's where you'd look for it. It needs **Slow-mo or Replay** on that clip — on a Normal clip there's nothing to freeze against, so it does nothing. If you want the freeze *without* an overall slowdown, set the clip to **Replay at 1×**: the shot repeats at full speed and the freeze carries the whole emphasis. Lock-On, the broadcast tracking HUD (Step 17), sits right beside Freeze on contact in the same "contact beat" group, though the two don't affect each other. - A held beat just before contact, releasing on the strike - Reel-wide in the Add FX sheet, plus a per-clip switch in that clip's Animations - Needs Slow-mo or Replay — no effect on a Normal clip - **Replay at 1× + hit-stop** = the freeze with no slowdown - Choreographed with the speed lines automatically On screen: the switch sits at the bottom of the Apply to all shots sheet, subtitled "A brief freeze right before contact — needs Slow-mo or Replay." ### Step 19 — Frame & Contact: framing the reel, aiming the effects Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#focus-pin-draw Two controls above the preview decide *what's in shot and when* the effects fire — reach for them when the crop is off, auto-detect picked the wrong player, or the burst lands a beat off. **Frame**, on every clip: the reel's shape and crop, and how close the replay zooms — once for every clip from that camera. **This shot only** (under Replay zoom) draws a replay box for one shot: the replay zooms to your box, *and* every comic effect re-runs against it, so the whole look follows the player you boxed. It **never moves the contact in time**. Paused, the dimmed part of the picture is what the export cuts off. **Contact** — the target button above the preview (it was called Pin; the pin is now only for coach notes), available on a Replay *or* any clip with an animation switched on. Scrub to the frame where bat meets ball, pause, and tap it. It does the sensible thing for whichever pass you're watching: - Watching the **original clip** → it re-targets the focus box, re-tags the contact so the burst, gust and lines land there, and slides the clip's own trim to re-centre on it. - Watching the **zoomed replay** → it does the same re-framing and re-tagging, just from the replay pass — the only thing it skips is re-aiming the zoom box itself, which stays where it was. It then lights up, with a **Clear** button next to it to go back to the automatic pick. - **Frame**: the reel's shape and crop, and the replay zoom, for every clip from that camera - **This shot only**: a replay box for one shot, which also re-aims its effects - **Contact**: pause where bat meets ball and tap; **Clear** undoes it > **Drawing here isn't the export crop.** This box aims the replay zoom and the effects. The crop that decides what survives a shape change is Framing on the export screen (Step 21) — a separate control. On screen: the draw canvas reads "Drag to draw a box — redraw as many times as you like, then Confirm", with **Cancel** and **Confirm box** beneath it. --- ## 5. Save & share ### Step 20 — Shape it for any platform Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#export-format Pick a platform preset — **Reels / Shorts / TikTok**, **Instagram post**, **Square**, **YouTube**, or **Original** to keep your footage exactly as you shot it. Or set the aspect and resolution yourself. Once the shape changes you choose what gives: **Fit (branded bars)** keeps the whole picture and fills the gaps with your logo, **Fill (crop edges)** fills the screen and trims the sides. - Presets: Original · Reels / Shorts / TikTok · Instagram post · Square · YouTube - Or set aspect (9:16, 4:5, 1:1, 16:9) & resolution yourself - Fit keeps everything and adds branded bars - Fill fills the screen and crops the edges — see Framing (Step 21) - Always on your Exports list; usually in your gallery too ### Step 21 — Auto-focus & cropping (Framing) Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#framing Filmed landscape, posting vertical? Something has to be cut — **Framing** decides what. **Auto-focus batter** is on by default and keeps your batter in the picture instead of blindly cropping the middle, **with no zoom at all**, so you lose no quality. It only has something to do once Fill is actually cropping the edges — on Fit, or at Original shape, nothing is being cut, so it makes no difference. Want to decide yourself? **Custom crop** lets you draw the keeper, per camera position. Everything inside your box is guaranteed to survive, and the dashed frame shows exactly what will be exported. - **Auto-focus batter** — on by default, no zoom, no quality lost - It applies when Fill crops the edges of a new shape - **Centre-crop** takes the middle, whatever's there - **Custom crop** → "Set crop per camera position →" - Drag a box; the dashed frame is exactly what exports - Watch the zoom readout — past 2× it warns it'll look soft > **Custom crop is the only mode that zooms.** The other two keep the full-size window and just decide where to put it — which is why they never cost you any quality. ### Step 22 — Transitions between clips Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#transitions Choose how one shot joins the next. On the export screen, **Transitions** gives you a straight **Cut**, a **Dip to black** that fades through black between clips, or a **Flash** of white for a punchy, sport-highlights look. The choice applies across the whole reel. - **Cut** — clips join straight, no effect - **Dip to black** — a gentle fade between clips - **Flash** — a quick white flash, highlights-style - Set once, applied across the whole reel - Near-instant to render — adds no real export time ### Step 23 — Brand it, then share Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#export-brand Add your Instagram handle to print under the watermark, drop in a link and CricCuts turns it into a scannable QR code on the reel, and tag the ground or the players. Then export and share straight to Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp or anywhere else. This screen also carries a **Head stillness** section, for putting that reading on the video itself: **Off**, **Legend** (a small key in the top-left of every shot, with that shot's colour lit up) or **Label** (that shot's result in words). It never prints a number, and a shot that couldn't be measured shows nothing — the colours are explained under speed lines (Step 17). - Instagram @handle prints below the watermark - A link becomes a scannable QR code on the reel - Tag players and the location - **Head stillness** — Off, Legend or Label on every shot - Export, then share anywhere in a tap ### Step 24 — Export Complete: your reel's stats Human page: https://criccuts.com/help.html#export-complete Once it's done, CricCuts shows a quick summary: clip count, original video length, highlights length, auto-trimmed length and output quality — plus a **CO₂e saved** estimate, a rough measure of the emissions avoided by cutting on your own phone instead of uploading the raw footage to a cloud editor. From here, share straight to social, open the file, or start a new session. - Clips, original video length, highlights length, auto-trimmed length & output quality - **CO₂e saved** — avoided emissions vs. a cloud editor - Share to social, Open, or New session --- ## More help - Human-friendly help guide: https://criccuts.com/help.html - FAQ (filming, adjacent nets, fixing a bad pick, battery and privacy): https://criccuts.com/#faq - What the speed-line colours mean: https://criccuts.com/what-the-speed-line-colours-mean.html - Get CricCuts (join the Google Play closed beta; there is no direct APK download): https://criccuts.com/#download - On an iPhone (there is no iPhone version; leave an email to hear if one is made): https://criccuts.com/#iphone - Support: support@criccuts.com