I made this after spending a day learning the stack and discovering that no single resource showed how the pieces actually fit together. The individual tools were interesting; the useful result only appeared when Timeline, Cinemachine, and post-processing were installed in compatible versions and connected correctly.
Why I made this
A developer who wanted to reproduce Unity's cinematic demos had to locate a particular beta build, install multiple packages, find the separate Timeline integration, and work around errors in imported examples. Each source explained part of the product, but none provided one reliable route from an empty project to a finished shot.
That fragmentation made the first useful result much harder than the feature demos suggested. Before someone could experiment with camera direction or composition, they had to understand package compatibility, virtual-camera behavior, Timeline tracks, and where post-processing belonged in the camera chain.
What I did
I begin with a clear shopping list and the exact Unity build the packages expected. I install Cinemachine, the Post Processing Stack, and the Timeline bridge, then show the import errors and remove the incompatible example content instead of pretending setup was frictionless.
From there I create a Timeline and Playable Director, attach a Cinemachine track, add the Cinemachine Brain to the main camera, and build two virtual cameras around a visible target. The sequence moves from hard cuts to blended camera transitions, so you can see what Timeline is controlling.
I then use Cinemachine's Composer to keep the subject framed as the camera moves. Finally, I place the post-processing profile on the main camera and demonstrate that the effect carries across the virtual shots. The ending proves the whole chain with a visible sequence rather than stopping at package installation.
Chapters
Select a chapter to jump the video directly to that part of the workflow.
A note on the archive
This recording uses preview-era Unity 5.6/2017 tooling and early versions of Timeline, Cinemachine, and the Post Processing Stack. Package installation, APIs, integration points, and Unity's rendering workflows have changed substantially since 2017.
Use current Unity documentation if you want to build this now. I’m keeping the video because it shows the real process of learning several new tools and getting them to cooperate, not because the old setup screens are still useful.