Short answer: It is a one-click cinematic opening for a new location. Right-click a background event in the timeline and choose Add camera move: Forge splices three things around your background - a framed zoom-in, a dissolve on the background change, and a gentle drift across the backdrop. They land as ordinary events, so you can retime, retarget, or delete any of them afterward.
How to add one
- Find the background event in the timeline (or add one first).
- Right-click it and choose Add camera move.
- Play the moment on the Stage to see the result.
The option appears only on background events - it is a treatment for revealing a place, so it needs a background to work on.
What Forge inserts
Three ordinary events, arranged around your background change:
- A framed zoom, before the background. The camera starts already pushed in on the backdrop - framed, with no visible pop - so the shot opens close instead of wide.
- A dissolve on the background change. If your background event didn't already have a transition, Forge gives it a soft dissolve so the new place fades in. If you had already chosen a transition, yours is kept.
- A gentle drift, after the background. The camera eases slowly across the backdrop while the story continues - it doesn't hold up the next line, it just keeps the frame alive underneath it.
Together they read as a classic establishing shot: the slow look at a new place before the conversation starts.
They're ordinary events
Nothing about the result is special or locked. Each piece is a normal row in the timeline: open the zoom to change how tight it frames, open the drift to change its direction or speed, swap the dissolve for another transition, or delete any piece you don't want. Run the shortcut, then treat what it inserted as a starting point to art-direct.
When to reach for it
Any time the story arrives somewhere new - the first shot of the school gate, the reveal of the villain's office, returning home after the second act. It replaces the flat cut-to-a-background with a moment of place-setting, for one right-click.