Whip (swish) pans in After Effects & Premiere [updated]

A whip or swish pan describes the motion of a fast camera move, as in following a passing train or spaceship. Because of motion blur, it’s most often used to smooth transitions between abrupt cuts of shots or scenes. While this is often done in post, Adobe doesn’t include dedicated tools for this effect, so here are some 3rd-party filters and tutorials you can use to construct whip pan transitions in After Effects and Premiere Pro.

A whip or swish pan describes the motion of a fast camera move, as in following a passing train or spaceship. Because of motion blur, it’s most often used to smooth transitions between abrupt cuts of shots or scenes. While this is often done in post, Adobe doesn’t include dedicated tools for this effect, so here are some 3rd-party filters and tutorials you can use to construct whip pan transitions in After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Videomaker described the effect nicely in Transitioning Naturally, and had a few extra recommendations for shooting swish pans in Do-it-yourself Transitions. And in Ten Minute Flick School Robert Rodriguez mentioned how he’s used whip pans (that and other stuff is discussed at Chase Jarvis):

There are a number of dedicated plug-ins that generate this effect, and not always in the big plug-in suites. Genarts suites have SwishPan transitions (look for SwishPan), and there’s one in Boris FX, the Boris Swish Pan filter.

 

Andy Mees has a free Swish Pan transition, as well as other filters and resources for Final Cut 7. He also added more general but still Mac-only swishy effects, including Andy’s Swish Pan and Andy’s Swish Dissolve. There’s mention of them in FxFactory Transitions in Premiere Pro:

 

 

 

Red Giant also offers a free GPU-accelerated swish pan filter in their Red Giant Universe package for NLE/Vfx on Mac & Windows. It has a good number of other free filters along with an ever-growing library of paid plug-ins. Here’s an example:

 

In Depth: Transitions, Part 2: The Swish Pan by Michele Yamazaki takes you deeper on the tools side, if you have Boris, GenArts, or similar plug-ins found in other packages. Most people should be happy enough with the free GPU-accelerated swish pan filter in Red Giant Universe.

 

There are of course many ways to custom build whip or swish pans in After Effects or Premiere Pro. Note that most NLE methods would work in After Effects too. Also, audio whooshes are often used to accompany this transition; see Freesound for some examples. And awhile back, inMangling Music Masterfully: Going beyond the basics in editing music, Chris Meyer noted sonic equivalents to mask or smooth sudden audio changes, if a simple transition won’t do.

Anne Bens posted Whip (swish) pan transition – Premiere Pro (no narration just distracting music, but simple and useful):

 

 

For Avid, see Swish Pan at Look No Plug-ins (5 example swish-pans built with native Avid effects) and Avid Screencast #03: Swish-Pan, cheap and real-time!

 

 

 

 

Carl Larsen shows you how to create a whip pan (swish pan) effect using After Effect’s built-in tools. Larsen’s use of the Motion Tile effect and motion blur is more refined than a more common blur of a push or wipe transition, but also a little more time-consuming than a dedicated plug-in.

 

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Evan Abrams posted a somewhat different take in Camera Whip Transtion – After Effects Tutorial, part of a series on custom transitions in AE:

 

 

On a tangent, it’s not always about making whip pans, but also occasionally working with them. In Tracking Difficult Shots with mocha Pro v3’s Camera Solver, Mary Poplin of Imagineer Systems shows you how to planar track a difficult whip-pan in a shot, and drop 3D models into a composite in both After Effects and Cinema 4D.

 

 

 

Please note that this roundup is for quick review and comparison. There is almost always vital information from the originating authors at the links provided — and often free presets, plug-ins, or stock footage too.