Using Transitions

[mitchell65]

Am I the odd one out? I notice a great number of threads dealing with transitions. There are certainly some very artistic transitions available to us but I have just watched a 35 minute professional video and apart from a few crossfades there were no transitions at all. Personally I rarely use them and when I do it is nearly always a crossfade. Most of my video work recently has been with horses. I know "Never work with animals or children" but as I am a volunteer with a horse sanctuary I have no option. I find transitions detract a bit from the main content and are sometimes really overdone. I prefer "Less is More". But then I am very new to all this so given time I may change my mind!

[Black Lab]

I'm with you John. Whenever I use a transition it is a simple crossfade 90% of the time. Only rarely instance does the subject matter need a more dramatic transition than a crossfade.

[sjj1805]

My view on transitions is that these are something that "newbies" tend to get carried away with to impress friends and family with loads of whizz bang effects that send you giddy. The first time your friends and family see one of your new videos they are full of "ooos" and "aaars"

Unfortunately the novelty soon wears off and friends and family soon grow tired of them. That is when you realize that there is more to editing than just throwing in loads of pre-made gimmicks.

What is and remains impressive is synchronising scene changes or slide shows to the sound track - in the case of slide shows this will of course be music. Here you use straight cuts and the picture changes as the beat changes.

Here is an over the top example that you would not of course do yourself, the member here was making a video to deliberately behave as it does.
Video: The ADD crowd

In an everyday video the slides would change perhaps every 3-5 seconds dependant upon content.

Unfortunately the computer here at work (it's a quiet night shift!) does not have the appropriate flash player and the computers are locked down so cannot install it. However from memory this bunch of videos should show how I do my synchronised "transitions" (straight cuts)
http://www.veoh.com/group/OceanVillage

There are times when a transition does come in handy - I recall using one of the flash transitions to hide a small defect where I cut a small bit of video out whilst panning across. to mask that sudden 'jump' the flash of light made it all seem natural.