Just try both and use whatever one looks best. Disolves and cuts can pretty much be used anywhere without many visual problems. It's when you start getting into the more obscure transitions like barn doors and 3D fly ins and things like that where you can make your viewers sick from overuse.

My rule of thumb, a dissolve usually denotes a change in time or idea, where a cut is just a continuation. Also, dissolves for mood, like romance or sadness.

Dave T2

>My rule of thumb, a dissolve usually denotes a change in time or idea, where a cut is just a continuation. Also, dissolves for mood, like romance or sadness

What he said!! :)

I use them in an attempt to control the "flow", I'll use cuts when I want a different point of view but nothing else changes, crossfades to make a point. The length of the crossfade and it's keyframe positions all have a significant effect on how the end result flows.

Cuts, I believe, when done well, are rarely noticed by anyone as having happened at all!!

Experimentation and observation will lead you in the right direction - watch tv and take note of things you like, then go play with Vegas!!

Thanks for the replies...I figure I might as well try to expand the brainpan while waiting for my render to ..well..render.

I find myself watching television and counting seconds between cuts ..and watching styles of transitions..this is actually more fun than watching some of the shows ;-)

The material most certainly dictates the stye of transition....nice to have your experienced comments to ponder

BB

My rule of thumb is there is no rule of thumb! Form follows function. Let the material guide you.

J--

The CMP Books Nonlinear Editing, Storytelling Aesthetics & Craft covers this type of stuff as well as colour, sound etc.

Not a bad investment.

There was a thread a short while ago recommending similar stuff that may be worth a look

Paul

Jay said "Let the material guide you."
I agree with this completely. I've done a few music videos where the style of the music demands quick cuts/effects and others where slow dissolves are the norm.

Mike

I would match the song style.

An uptempo song would be almost all straight cuts.

A ballad might have more dissolves.

In general just follow the KISS principal.
An 'editor' I did some work for the other day was interested in Vegas so long as it had better transitions than ULead, shudder, shudder!

Your idea about looking at contemporary TV is the best bet. After all, your viewers will have calibrated their own sense of aesthetics by watching the same TV.

For my choir documentary, my basic rule of thumb was to use cuts for the tour, but dissolves for the performances. The music varied from humorous to spiritual, but dissolves seemed to work fine.

When I first began working with Vegas a few years ago I fretted that there was no simple way to ensure that dissolves would be of the same length every time. Now I see that I don't want them to be the same. I never use a short dissolve because it almost seems like the editor made a mistake, but I use medium dissolves mostly, with an occasional long dissolve when the situation warrants it.

I don't think you should count the number of anything in a production. I don't think a composer would cound the number of Dm chords used in the composition and worry that she had too many or too few.

johnmeyer
i agree..i've been playing guitar for 35 years..it's like breathing
i've been an audio engineer for 25 years ..I can punch a breath or a single letter syllable ( a dead art indeed) ..without thinking

i am thrilled at being a video novice....the learning curve is exciting..
i am once again interested in the inappropriate..i am learning new things that are old hat for many..

for many in the audio ONLY business getting up to speed in video is a matter of survival ..so i am certainly happy too be part of this experienced forum.

i haven't talked to a record exec in the last year who didn't request video as part of any potential deal.

i am fascinated in this kind of editing nuance ..as much as i am in the guitar tones i record....

it's 1:40am and i am rambling for sure but very much enjoying the comments.

bb

As seen in 'This is Spinal Tap', in the hauntingly beautiful Nigel Tufnel song - 'Lick My Love Pump"

I read a video maker magazine article that said the best "rule of thumb" is the 90-9-1 rule:

Use cuts 90% of the time, dissolves 9% of the time, and special transitions 1% of the time.

...that's what the article said...

While it's probably old advice, watch TV or movies with the sound off to see how well the transitions fit the flow.

The same thing is true of your own editing. when you think you have it right, turn off the sound and watch. (Can be painful)

Turning off the sound also reinforces the importance of really good audio.

Number 1 rule - if the transitions stand out in a movie/video (except for films like Batman) they are probably not a good choice.

On the subject of sound: Sometimes cuts seem too harsh not because of the visual jump but the audio jump. You'll find that bringing in the audio of the 2nd clip early (and dissolving the audio rather than the video) helps the going from one cut to the next. It's known as a 'J' cut. You'll need to ungroup the audio from the video. I have a macro that does it all for me (keeping the a/v grouped together)

I am just finishing up a video for my band as well and used both techniques.
What I found worked good for dissolves was when I was doing a bunch of video clips and used slow motion, then dissolves really gave it a feel. Especially if I could time it to the music when an event happened.
Hard cuts or a flash transition works good on the faster scenes.
I just learning though!

great comments!
the 90-9-1 rule seems about as right as any rule can be in an artistic endeavour...i experimented early on with the fancy transitions then quickly retreated back to cuts and dissolves. I do notice much more use of the 'barn door / page roll" type transitions in children's shows where there is a mix of animation and actor scenes...the bold transitions work well there.

the 'watch' with no audio tip is an eyeopener..it makes odd transistions really stand out. just fixed a couple...thanks

bb

Whenever cuts are used - (and as my old film tutor always said - the cut is the most dynamic transition of all) - it's always good to consider where the eye is lead before/after the cut. Smooth cuts leave the eye in the same part of the frame, but sometimes you need to deliberately shatter this.

In a theatre, where there aren't too many cuts, you'll see that they do all sorts of tricks to lead your eye across the stage to where the important action is. When an actor who has been silent and in the background for a while is going to say something, you'll often notice that he makes a move first, gets up from a chair or takes a few steps. Something visible that will attract the eyes. Only then does he say his line, knowing that if he speaks too soon, we won't pick up what he's saying.

I guess you could boil film/video cuts down to that level: The purpose of the cut is to prepare the viewer for what's coming. If what's coming is a direct continuation of what just passed, you do not need to prepare anything, just make sure you don't interrupt the flow. But if there is a significant change of tempo, location, mood or a timeshift, you may want to prepare for it. That could be anything from a short crossfade to an entire event pasted in between. The rule of thumb should still be that the transition should be "invisible" or at the most, be seen as the announcer of the next "real" event. People belonging to this camp will often say transitions are for beginners.

But there is another formula: to make the transition part of the entertainment. This - like so many things - can be done well and it can be done miserably. Here you are not so much concerned with the flow of the movement or story. You want to make a division between one part of the program and the next. In the theatre, this is a short curtain for re-rigging the stage. People of this camp wants to have a choice of many transitions, the flashier, the merrier.

In most discussion of these matters you have people of the two camps debating as if theirs was the only one. But any rule made up for the one will look silly applied to the other.
Tor

If you want an object lesson in what happens if you stray too far from the 90-9-1 rule, rent or tape these movies:

Grand Prix (James Garner)
Thomas Crown Affair (the original with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen)

These were done in the mid and late 1960s when everyone was experimenting with everything. If you want to see effects for effects sake (i.e., they don't add to the story), these films show you the result.

What is interesting is that, even after having gotten accustomed to far faster MTV-style editing and more special effects than could ever have been imagined in the 60's, the "gadgety" effects in these old movies still seem to draw attention to themselves and detract from the story (although the chess scene in the orignal Thomas Crown Affair is still one of the most amazing sequences in film).

I know I am late in jumping in here but I wanted to jump in anyway.

Normally I would say - whatever feels right is right.

And that is my rule to live by when it comes to editing.

There are no rules when to comes to being creative.

However -

MTV has changed things massivly. What was it - um The Replacements was it? They had the video of a speaker. It went against the norm of showing a band or even telling a 'story'. So what I live by can still hold true in any case but you have to really think outside of the box as well. Also a musician will look at things a bit different than someone who is only an editor or only a director. In other words - how many times have you seen a video, film, tv show with a musician and you get to that part where, say, the guitar solo happens. Suddenly you are on the singer or the bass player or the drummer - and you hear "What the hell?!?!? I want to see the guitarist!" And than when they show the guitarist but they show their face and you hear "What the hell?!?!?!? I don't want to see the face I want to see the fingers on the frets!!" So what 'feels good' editing wise at those moments will depend on what the person editing 'feels' or even 'knows'.

Some real world examples -

I sat once in a control room of a TV show whenre the director simply sat there and counted based on the "rules" - the band was playing and he would just do this "1,2,3,4 - Take Camera 2...1, 2, 3, 4...Take Camera 1...1,2,3,4...take camera 3..." and so on. Had nothing to do with what part of the song was being played, didn't matter about being creative...just that the "rule" of directing music performances at that time was to cut on the beat, or on the 4 count, to the next shot. And also always follow the "rule" of Master > Medium Shot > Close Up. So if Camera 2 was the "master" they would alsways cut back to that prior to cutting to another shot. This has always stuck with me because it was so clueless...but it was the "rule". that far too many people followed, and *still* follow.

I knew this blues guitarist who was heavy into Hendrix. I remember one conversaiton we got talking about music videos and music films - he started going off about the movie "Woodstock" and how is was so bad that they would shoot Hendrix's face or go off to the crowd when he was soloing. I don't know what "felt right" to the editor(s) of the film but I would bet money it didn't have to do with counting to 4 and making a cut or trying to be MTV like. I also doubt it had too much to do with pleasing the other guitart players who might someday be viewing the film.

I just picked up the "G3 live in Denver" DVD. I watched it and was getting a bit bummed they didn't have more shots of the drummers or bass players...and you know the point is this is about guitarists. So what "feels good" in this case in knowing 100% who the viewers will be. (thusly a bonus feature of the DVD is a "fret cam" option) But editing wise it was not great IMO, but certianlly there is a lot of fancy fret work eye candy to look at so on that level it certianlly felt fine.

So to the question of a cut verses a dissolve - whatever feels right. In the box thinking tells people that slow ballads should have nice dissovles and fast, double kick driven music, should have cuts. Howeveroutside of the box - well, anything goes...bit even that it should still 'feel' right. Actually as I type this the ending of "Dr Stranglove" comes to mind. You have this incredable violent theme and end action yet it i splayed slow with nice slow music. It is so haunting that everytime I hear Louis Armstrong's voice singing "What a Wonderful World" I shudder and imagine the end of the world...that is power in editing put to music and certianly outside of the box thinking if one were to present this song to you and say "Make a music video" (And I know Dr. Strangelove was not a music video by any means - but the lyrics of the song and visuals of the film playing togetehr so perfectly is what I am talking about)