Section 15.1. About Transitions

15.1. About Transitions

What happens when one clip ends and the next one begins? In about 99.99 percent of all movies, music videos , and commercialsand in 100 percent of camcorder movies before the Macintosh erayou get a cut . That's the technical term for "nothing special happens at all." One scene ends, and the next one begins immediately.

Professional film and video editors, however, have at their disposal a wide range of transitions special effects that smooth the juncture between one clip and the next. For example, the world's most popular transition is the crossfade or dissolve , in which the end of one clip gradually fades away as the next one fades in (see Figure 15-1). The crossfade is so popular because it's so effective. It gives a feeling of softness and grace to the transition, and yet it's so subtle that the viewer might not even be conscious of its presence.

Figure 15-1. The world's most popular and effective transition effect: a Cross Dissolve.

Like all DV editing programs, iMovie offers a long list of transitions, of which crossfades are only the beginning. You'll find a catalog of them on Section 15.3.7. But unlike other DV editing software, iMovie makes adding such effects incredibly easy, and the results look awesomely assured and professional.