What are some common mistakes to avoid when using transitions in video editing?

A fade and a dissolve are not the same thing. A dissolve is a transition wherein one scene dissolves out while the other dissolves in. It is the second most commonly used transition behind the cut. A fade (often referred to as a fade to black or fade from black) is when one scene dissolves to full screen black before dissolving from black to another scene.

One more thing: Being a good editor is like being a good umpire or waiter. You never notice the good ones. If the viewer is noticing your editing: if it's jarring or the pace is too slow, then they're not watching the story. We want to avoid creating cognitive dissonance in the minds of viewers. Use an editing style that fits the mood of the story and enhances the telling of it. Again, IMHO.

While fades are mentioned, what is missing are dips to color. These are typically used with white or black and often a single frame or only a few frames. Dips are essentially quick fades but feel more like a cut. They achieve a similar feel to cuts and work best when moving from one scene to another.

In the professional world it’s always safe to stick with a basic dissolve or cut. Dissolves should be quick unless being used to help tell a slower paced story. Save the star wipe or funky transitions for your fun home videos.

Pay attention to transition speed. How fast a transition executes, whether linear, eases in or out or both, accelerates in or out, or decelerates in or out. Straight linear transitions are almost always bad and look cheap or archaic. If you can't control speed from the plugin, consider developing your own transitions. Using Final Cut Pro and Motion makes this very easy.

Depends on what your product is, the needs of the story, state of mind as an editor, client, and impact on audience. Experimentation and customization makes mediocre footage workable and ruins what’s good. Cuts can be synced with footage color, movement, sound/music. They can speed up the story and make the video crisp and seamless. Fades and dissolves provide continuity/separation, control moods and speed, and add quality. Special transitions can be exceptional but require a lot more attention. They may not be used too frequently. View your transitions multiple times, get constructive feedback. That’s micro application. You may want to look at the project overall and test other approaches to see how things change. Enjoy!

I think the most commonly used transition is the cut. Probably the most natural, not causing a break in the narrative. Probably that’s why in live news we use cut 95% of the time. Of course a mix or a fade has its purpose but in very specific places.

Make sure your transition has a purpose foremost, then be positive it makes sense to the audience. Always ask why you are manipulative narrative when doing so.

Transitions should only be used to enhance storytelling. Citizen Kane and It's A Wonderful Life are marvelous stories told with simple cuts and the occasional dissolve. They use excellent scripts, cinematography and lighting - not transitions - to tell compelling stories. Good editing can make a good story, photography, and lighting great, but not even great editing can save bad fundamentals with transitions (or any other tricks you might try). Bottom line: save those neat cube and sawtooth wipes for your goofy social media projects, but for paid work, focus more on the pacing and timing of your edits and justify any transition you might use as a needed enhancement to the project. if you can't do the latter: dump it. IMHO

For a non-professional video editor, one of the easiest ways to make your video look amateurish is the use of "creative" transitions. For the vast majority of projects, 98% of your transitions should be cuts. 2% should be dissolves.

Star wipes are the best transition in all of editing. There are other transitions and wipes besides star wipes, but why eat hamburger when you can have steak?

I couldn't agree more with Jeramy's view point. When it comes to corporate social media, the less flashy the transitions the better. Many people have become accustom to using editing app templates in apps like Instagram Reels, CapCut and TikTok. The templates have pre-made transitions which may give videos an unprofessional feel. I'd recommend only utilizing cuts, and some dissolves when needed.

It also depends on what you’re cutting. If you’re cutting a narrative drama you absolutely want the cuts to be unnoticeable and smooth. But if you’re cutting a 30 second fast paced promo or music video thrives off expensive looking bespoke transitions (make sure you get a decent transitions package for this)

Most of your transitions should be dissolves or some sort of cut. Whether a J-, L- or jump, does not matter. Everything else needs to flow naturally. I love adding wipes to a few videos when I can for example, or whip pans. But does that fit your edit, the brand your editing for style, or the overall energy of the piece? If you said not to ANY of these, do not add the transition. Simple cuts and dissolves go a long way and are not extreme enough to pull someone out of the "immersion." Creative transitions may be flashy, have wow-factor, and be attention grabbing. Yet they can also break someones intent to fully view your video. Consider the branding, style of video, and messaging on what transitions you should include.

Adding transitions should be the last step. If it makes sense with cuts great. If it doesn't look better with a transition, then omit. Cut on the beat. If you cut on the action of the incoming and outgoing clip then you won't need a transition.

One thing that I have found true, whether editing long-form, short-form, film, commercial, broadcast, social media, marketing or promotional assets, you must decide on the sound of your transition. Although no sound for certain transitions is more powerful at times, when you do assign a sound for your transition it must carry the weight of your visual. Once you assign the sound that carries your transition, then you might have to reconsider the color, shape, or speed. (The same transition may vary inside a single edit.)

Transitions can either look really good or horrible. It’s really only Star Wars that can somehow get away with horrible diamond wipe transitions! Most of the time a cross dissolve (slow fade between shots) will work or a dip to colour - I’ll use a black or white to ‘separate’ sections in a video or to accentuate a positive or negative feeling within the narrative. Occasionally I’ll use a wipe transition if it feels appropriate for the video to be slightly more fast paced and modern. If your gut tells you the transition looks awful then chances are it is!

I love using the video itself to help determine the transitions that will work with it, but I agree that the large majority of the transitions used should be cuts. For example, if the camerawork in the video is moving in a certain direction, it can be cool to have a slower wipe work along with the movement of the video to transition into a new scene.

Learn the meaning of transitions in the language of film so you understand how to use them correctly. The cut is your workhorse. Most shot-to-shot editing will and should be done entirely with cuts. While a dissolve can be used to indicate a significant passage of time or change in location in a narrative film. If you're working on a non-narrative project (like a promo video, interview, commercial, e.t.c.) dissolves should primarily be used with on screen graphics.

The grand view of editing is to clearly tell the story or message. Secondarily it also does not call attention to itself[ the act of editing]. The use of transitions is governed by this same thought. If you are noticing the transitions, then you are taking away from the story. Dissolves are traditionally used to show a passage of time but they can also smooth out an edit... cutting in or out of action or camera movement may work with a cut, but a dissolve may be less jarring to the eye. So the over use of transitions - I agree - can be a sign of unprofessional work... or transitions can build a secondary theme in a story like the wipes in Star Wars. Kletchy? Maybe but no one was hurt and it was fun to see as a throw back effect.

If a cut does not work, it wont work with a transition : a transition will not make it work. Also a transition has to be justified from a story point

Transitions serve a purpose. If you use a dissolve, that implies that the footage is discontinuous with the VO or the underlying action. This works for B-Roll or slideshow images. If you are directly visualizing what's being described in the VO, then cuts will keep the viewer in the moment.

Watch out for making ‘hard cuts’ where the audio and visuals change at the same time mid way through a scene. This can be jarring to the viewer, especially if you’re trying to make the transition smooth. An example of this is if you’re going from someone talking in a quiet room to someone else talking on a noisy one. Using an audio mix transition will make this smoother. Plus putting a cutaway before we see the second person talking makes the cut less jarring.

Transitions can be a fun tool in quick 15 and 30 spots but in longer form storytelling applications the transition should only be noticed if it's helping to drive the narrative. Two fun old school transitions or cuts are the L and J cut that utilize overlapping audio from the previous or upcoming scene to tie things together.

Take time to develop the visual language of your edit, just like you would as a screenwriter to develop the backstory and wants for a character. You shouldn’t be able to feel a transition, if done well it should fit within the language so well that it feels inevitable. Don’t rely on transitions to tell the story or keep viewers entertained; rather, they are tools to enhance the comprehension of your vision and they should match the pace and tone of your film so that they fit in seamlessly.

Sound is as important as visuals. Too often I have seen some really good cuts and transitions but then cringed from the hard audio transition. A simple fade-in and fade-out of each clip on the timeline is a good place to start.

Have you heard the quote: "If you can't solve it, dissolve it"? I remind myself of that every day. Look at Hollywood films. It is rare to see a transition used. An easy way to avoid the need to use a transition is to never use "like" shots back-to-back. Using a wide shot followed by a wide shot is awkward, often requiring a transition to smooth it out. If you use a wide shot followed by a medium or close up shot, your scene will feel more natural, eliminating the need for a transition.

Only use cuts and dissolves, and use 500 cuts for every dissolve. DO be afraid to experiment and have fun with transitions. Have fun with your shooting, not your editing. You will not discover something amazing or original, but instead ruin your project.

Long dissolves are painful unless added for appropriate dramatic effect. When using dissolves for titles don’t stick to the 30 frame, pre programmed rate many NLE are shipped with . 10 and 15 frames for title in/out is much better on the eye. But like many have said here, dissolves between scenes are not need all that much- use sparingly!!

Ultimately, the most important considerations are 1) what the client, employer, or audience is looking for, and 2) whether the effect makes stylistic sense with the type of content you're producing. If utilizing clever transitions is something that DOES belong in your piece, try to find opportunities to do these in camera if you're the DP. You can do amazing things with a well-executed whip pan, dollying into and then out of a dark area or foreground object, or racking a soft focus out of one shot and back in on the next.

Transitions are not JUST FOR THE EDIT! Camera movement and live action transitions are GOD! If you can make your transitions in your live action filming the edit with look so smooth, For example you can do a fade to black by pushing the camera angle into and object at the end of a clip and then pulling out of an object for the next clip, it has to be done right but can add so much to your video if executed properly.

Agree with @Jeramy Pappas for most videos. But, with a caveat that it really depends on what you're cutting. A promo/ad, music video, sizzle reel, or short-form material can use more stylized transitions / edits. Long-form or narrative storytelling, however, follows more traditional straight cuts so it doesn't distract from the story. I've always followed the rule of thumb that if the cut or transition is jumping at me noticeably for no rhyme or reason (while I'm trying to follow a scene) -- it's not a good one; get rid of it!

Using unique transitions or using them in an unexpected way can be the perfect way to make your piece stand out in the right way. It certainly depends on what type of video you are working on and its tone, but I use unusual transitions in promotional videos for holiday entertainment, family-friendly activities, etc. And transitions don't have to be used only in the way they were intended. Try using them to make an effect. Maybe you can layer them and create something new. You should definitely not be afraid to experiment and have fun! It won't always be successful and that's okay. After all, that's what Command-Z (undo) is for.

One thing to try if your transitions don't look the way you want them to: let them sit for some time and come back to them. When you've just added clips and transitions you're hyperaware of where the video and audio cut. But when someone is watching your video content, they only pay attention if the transitions are awkward or misleading. Take a break from editing and come back with fresh eyes.

Think about continuity. Does the transition imply a jump to a different time or place? Are we staying at the same time or place? Or do you want to create the illusion of one or the other? Remember, we don't get transitions IRL, so any transition will distract the viewer. You might want that, you might not.

Tell the story first. then deal with transitions. You will find that cuts will create the most attention. and for some reason I should be over 125 characters. WTF I am an editor, brevity is king.

The viewer should really not even notice your transitions. If they do, you're probably doing it wrong. They should never be distracting from the most important thing - your video and the story it is telling.