Foreground Wipe & Flash

Why it works

The transition object comes straight from the current scene (a ball, a halo), so viewers see the transition as part of the camera movement. The whole film uses only these two transitions and very few hard cuts, which keeps continuity in a monochrome style; the switch point lands on a fully covered frame.

Spec

Timing

Film 11s, four scenes: logs explorer 0-2.6s, parameter 2.6-5.1s, trace waterfall 5.1-7.4s, wordmark 7.4-11s. Wipe 1: ball drifts 0-2.4s, sweep 2.4-2.9s (7 frames in, 8 frames out), scene swap at 2.6s. Flash: halo rises 4.83-5.1s (8 frames), swap at 5.1s, white fades 5.1-5.4s (9 frames). Wipe 2: ball drifts to 7.2s, sweep 7.2-7.7s, swap at 7.4s

Easing

Wipe enters with expo.out over 7 frames (0.233s) and exits right with power2.in over 8 frames (0.267s); flash halo rises with ease: "none" over 8 frames and falls with power3.out (cubic-bezier(0.33,1,0.68,1)) over 9 frames; scene camera moves are ease: "none"

Camera

Scene 1: camera moves right (content x 70 to -60, scale 1.26 to 1.36 over 2.6s) with a 3D tilt easing rotationY 9 to 6 (perspective 1700px). Scene 2: slow push 1.0 to 1.05 over 2.5s. Scene 3: x 70 to -50, scale 1.42 to 1.5, tilt the other way (rotationY -10 to -6). Scene 4: 1.0 to 1.05 over 3.6s

Subject

A matte black ball (2800px at scale 0.42-0.45 waiting at the lower left, blur 54px, soft top-left highlight) sweeps across the foreground to the frame center scale 1, then leaves right at scale 1.08. The flash is a 5200px radial gradient halo (white core to 42%) from the frame center scaling 0.05 to 1.5, then a full white plate. Small blurred spheres (150px, 70px, 190px) sit in the lower-right foreground

Sync

The scene swap lands on the frame the ball is centered (frame 78 and frame 222) or the frame white is full (frame 153); the ball sweep is 15 frames and the flash 17 frames. The final wordmark scene opens with a white seed glow at 7.4s that fades as the mark sharpens

Style

Light scenes: gray studio (#d7d7d9 to #bdbdc0, soft highlight at 68% 36%, 26% edge vignette); dark scenes: radial #131315 to #060607; ball matte black #09090a shading to #5b5b61 highlight; flash pure white. Wordmark Inter 600 190px, letter-spacing -0.045em, #f4f4f5

Prompt

People describe it as

• A big blurred ball passes in front of the camera, covers the frame, and the scene changes
• A glow blows out the whole frame and cuts to the next scene
• No hard cuts, only wipes or flashes to connect scenes

Often confused with

• Match CutMatch Cut keeps the anchor still and swaps the object directly; Foreground Wipe & Flash changes scenes on the frame that covers the screen.
• Mark-to-Wordmark UnfoldMark-to-Wordmark Unfold is often followed by a white flash; the flash itself is only a transition device.