Effects and Transitions- Opinions

[downunderwonder]

Hello, I am aiming at getting better and better at creating movie output.Can anyone give me opinions on the very best transiton effects to use for a professional look, for example what would be the top 3 choices for transsiton in VS10. Lots of the effects are "cool" but very tacky in actual use

[sjj1805]

Welcome to our forum.

The answer to this is look at what the professionals do with Holywood movies. How many transitions do they use?
Most times the professionals use straight cuts or crossfades.
Transitions may look impresive to your friends and family at first but they will soon tire from them if you have too many and they detract from the real purpose of your video which is the subject matter of the video itself.

Transitions are great for spicing up slideshows and can make them more interesting.

The test is does the transition you choose enhance the video in some way?
As an example last year I created a charity DVD which included a fun-run.
To move the action along I used side wipe transitions to give the effect of the runners moving further along the route.

In another holiday video I had a building with a statue at the top.
I used a box transition so that it looked as though I was now zooming into the statue.

[lancecarr]

I have to agree totally with what Steve has written. Sit down in front of the TV when there is a movie on a commercial channel. Everytime the scene changes in either the movie or in any advertising see what they used. You will find the vast majority of times it is a straight cut, next in popularity will come the crossfade and last will come a variation on the crossfade which will be fade to/from black. It will be only very rarely that any other transition wil lbe used.

[Black Lab]

Ditto Steve and Lance. For video, transitions get old real fast. On the other hand, they can spice up slide shows a bit (but don't go overboard with those either!).

[downunderwonder]

Thanks Everyone. Sounds like crossfade is going to be my first choice with Fade to Black second, and none at all.

I tried setting my preferences as shown to insert a default transition but it wouldn't do it. This was on a project I had already started. Does this have to be done before each project is started?

Cheers from NZ

[lancecarr]

Yes, that particular preference needs to be set before you start the project.

[Ron P.]

Hi,

Yes it must be done prior to adding clips. What you can do in place of dragging and dropping, is to double-click on the transition. It wil begin adding it to the first space between clips. Each subsequent double-click continues on done the timeline until all places have been filled.

Ron P.