The Ambient background fills the background of your video with a heavily blurred, moving copy of your own screen recording, or your camera when no screen is showing, so the colors around your content always match what’s on screen. You’ll find it under Background in the editor’s Style panel, on the Animated tab.
Turn on the ambient background
- Open your video in the Tella editor.
- Click Style in the toolbar, or press
B.
- Under Background, open the Animated tab.
- Click Ambient. Hover over a thumbnail to see its name.
You can also click Browse all next to Background, open Animated, and pick Ambient, the first option under Tella.
What does the ambient background show?
It shows the recordings in the current clip, blurred until only their colors remain:
- Screen recording: while your screen is visible, the background follows it.
- Camera: when the screen is hidden, for example in a camera-only layout, the background shows your camera instead.
- No recordings: a clip without a screen or camera recording gets a black background.
The background moves with your recording, so it changes as your screen or camera changes. You see it wherever your layout leaves the canvas uncovered, such as the padding around your screen recording.
Use the ambient background on one clip only
In Style, open the ⋯ menu beside the background controls and select Apply to this clip only, then pick Ambient. The other clips keep their own background. This option appears only when your video has more than one clip.
Each clip’s ambient background uses that clip’s own recordings, so it also works when you apply it to every clip.
For every other kind of background, see Change the background. Last modified on October 15, 2026
