Technique · Time

Timeline scrub

Years roll past quickly on screen, with the picture changing as the dates count, so the viewer travels through a stretch of time in seconds.

01 · 1998

02 · The years roll

03 · 2024

A timeline scrub compresses time. Years that took a decade to live pass in a few seconds, and the viewer feels both the distance and the speed. It is the quick way to get from a beginning to the moment the story is really about, without narrating every year in between.

With still pictures it is made from a date counter or a row of years sliding across the frame, with a picture for each key year swapping in as its date passes. The pictures should share a layout, such as the same building, face or product in the same place, so the change reads at a glance.

The common mistakes are too many stops and wrong dates. Every picture on a timeline claims a year, so each one must truly come from it. And a scrub that pauses on every year is no longer fast; pick a handful of stops and let the rest roll by.

When to use it

When the years between two key moments matter less than the fact that they passed: a company's growth, a career, a city changing.

Motion instruction (example)

A row of years slides left from 1998 to 2024; at each marked year the picture above swaps to that year's photo. 6 seconds, three or four stops. Keep each photo in the same place and at the same size. No camera move on the photos.

Last reviewed 15 October 2026.