Drum roll type

How to use it

Run most of the clip as full-frame rolling words and counters, one turn per item, cutting back to the speaker once or twice.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallAvoidSplitSuits itSideWorksDrawn overAvoid

Full scene: the scene fills the frame. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story.

STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything.
1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal.
2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside.
3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen.
4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next.
5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence.
6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay.
7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures.
8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it.
9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold.
10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice.
11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects.
12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label.
13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects.
14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less.

VISUAL STYLE: Drum roll type
Slice style ref: sref-YHAJQB
Look and motion: Drum roll type. Flat bright grounds: #FF6F4E coral with #FFD23F yellow type, flipping to yellow with #1A1A1A black type for the payoff; #E6F6FB pale and #2E86DE blue as small accents. Optional fine speckle. Light flat, except letters near the top and bottom of the drum darken slightly. Type: condensed bold capitals for the drum, a heavy grotesque for the rolling counter line, all centred. Camera locked. Motion: words sit on the faces of an unseen turning cylinder: the front face is solid, the faces above and below foreshorten and turn to outlines; the drum steps one face per spoken item with a smooth eased roll, then on the payoff rolls past several outlined repeats of the same word and lands one solid row. Single letters of a short word roll vertically to the next word like an odometer, staggered letter by letter. A colour flip rolls in like another face rather than fading. Between rolls the drum keeps a tiny drift. The one rule: words change by rolling, never by fading. Don'ts: no fades, no serif, no static frames longer than a beat, no shaking.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• Look and motion: Drum roll type.
• Flat bright grounds: #FF6F4E coral with #FFD23F yellow type, flipping to yellow with #1A1A1A black type for the payoff; #E6F6FB pale and #2E86DE blue as small accents.
• Optional fine speckle.
• Light flat, except letters near the top and bottom of the drum darken slightly.
• Type: condensed bold capitals for the drum, a heavy grotesque for the rolling counter line, all centred.
• Camera locked.
• Motion: words sit on the faces of an unseen turning cylinder: the front face is solid, the faces above and below foreshorten and turn to outlines; the drum steps one face per spoken item with a smooth eased roll, then on the payoff rolls past several outlined repeats of the same word and lands one solid row.
• Single letters of a short word roll vertically to the next word like an odometer, staggered letter by letter.
• A colour flip rolls in like another face rather than fading.
• Between rolls the drum keeps a tiny drift.
• The one rule: words change by rolling, never by fading.
• Don'ts: no fades, no serif, no static frames longer than a beat, no shaking.

What it suits

Best for

Lists, countdowns, intros and reveals with a rhythmic, rolling energy.

Avoid for

Quiet reflection or emotional stories.

Content

Numbers, Announcement, Hype, How-to

Tone

Upbeat, Bold

Pace

Fast

Topics

list, countdown, top ten, reveal, intro, numbers, music, ranking, steps, results

Colours

#FF6F4E #FFD23F #1A1A1A #E6F6FB #2E86DE

For AIs: this style as plain text.