Hello and welcome!
If you’re reading this post, you’ve likely encountered a scrolling movie or “scrollie” made with Scroll Cinema somewhere out there on the web.
Scroll Cinema, for anyone who isn’t aware, is a robust, no-code visual editor for making high-fidelity, scroll-driven work for the web, built from the ground up to be intuitive and easy to use.
It’s designed for artists, animators, writers, designers, developers, and creators in general who want to create scrolling experiences without programming, allowing you to work and publish directly in browser while giving expressive control over presentation, pacing, and interaction.
If a scrollie has piqued your interest and made you curious about how it was made — or if you’re wondering if you could maybe make one yourself — you’ve come to the right place!
Quick Start
If you’d just like to get started…
- Apply for an AltSalt account (a very light approval process if you don’t already have an invitation code)
- Watch the tutorial playlist below
- Try making a scrollie of your own!
Be sure to subscribe to AltSalt’s YouTube channel for the latest tutorials and updates!
Also check out the open call for submissions for our first issue of Scrollimation, a publication dedicated to the art and culture of scrolling (submission deadline February 15, 2026).
So what is Scroll Cinema?
Scroll Cinema is robust software for creating scroll-driven animations.
More than that though, it’s a tool for orchestrating relationships between animated sequences — images, text, sound, motion — using scrolling as the primary way a reader moves through the experience.
Think of it as a cross between Adobe After Effects and the Unity Game Engine, optimized for simple scroll gestures of the web with a streamlined but powerful interface capable of creating complex, interactive, cinematic work. With it, see your initial ideas come to life in just a few minutes, then dive in deeper to master the tool’s depths.
Scroll Cinema has been under development for many years and is now ready to be used in production for in-depth projects of up to several minutes in length. Even more advanced workflows and interactive possibilities are also on the roadmap!
Example Scrollies
Here are some examples of what can be made with Scroll Cinema:
Scroll Cinema is part of a broader medium I refer to as “scrollimation,” which uses scrolling as its primary expressive mechanism and exists within the broader umbrella of “electronic literature.”
Scrollimation is a flexible medium and lends itself particularly well to highly visual content, including webcomics, animated poetry, multimedia zines, and more — though it is a nascent medium and there is much yet to be explored!
Other examples of artistic scrollimation not made with Scroll Cinema include:
What is Electronic Literature?
Electronic literature is literature that has been created on and for consumption on digital devices. The key idea is that work’s digital nature is intrinsic to the experience of the text.
The field of electronic literature goes hand-in-hand with the development of technology over the past several decades, and the field is very broad, including anything from interactive fiction stories, to augmented reality video games, to hypertext novels, and more.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out the Electronic Literature Organization, an international organization dedicated to the investigation and support of electronic literature.
Conclusion
I hope this has been useful as a quick primer on Scroll Cinema, and can be the start of your journey into scrollimation! Feel free to join us on Discord, where you can connect with other creators, share project ideas, request features, and ask questions. Looking forward to seeing what you make!
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