Roll, found in the NewBlue Motion Blends collection, is perfect for implying energetic motion as it takes the viewer from one scene to another.

This transition works by scrolling the frame image over and over at an increasingly frenetic pace and then slowing down, to ease into the new image.

Think of a film that loses its registration in the projector and starts flipping by, to ultimately lock back on but with a different scene. Throw in motion blurring and it becomes a very effective technique for moving forward in your story.

For this movie, we need an action cut to take us from the race car…

Race Car

…to our hero walking his dog:

Hero Walking Dog

Our editing software automatically gives us a cross fade:

Automatic Crossfade

…which isn’t very inspiring.

So, let’s drop in the Roll transition.

Roll Transition Dialog

Like most NewBlueFX, Roll is remarkably intuitive to set up.

Rate sets the speed and direction of the roll. We start with it turned a little right to roll the image from left to right.

Orientation sets the direction of the roll. We leave it set to Horizontal. This causes the image to fly to the right at an increasing pace, then slow down, displaying the second scene.

Orientation

Now we need something to add emphasis to the side to side motion, to really imply how fast this is running.

The Blur control is our answer. Turn up Blur to cause the image to blur in the direction of the motion as it rolls faster:

Add Blur

Now we’re moving!

Finally, adjust the Cross Fade. Doing so sets how quickly to cross fade between the two scenes while rolling.

Adjust Cross Fade

That’s it.

The Roll transition is an indispensible tool for adding a fast paced flow to your edits. To learn more about Roll and NewBlue Motion Blends, go to http://www.newbluefx.com/motion-blends.html .