newbie question- automatic crossfades for multiple events- How?

[Randall Raymond]

[Gary Kleiner] “Yesterday, I got chocolate all over my keyboard. Now THAT’S sloppy editing!”

Mine’s more like ashes and bourbon.

[Imants Ozers]

[Art] “The best transistion is a crossfade. A crossfade most closely resembles what your brain does when switching attention from one object to another.(see persistence of vision — you can’t even “see” a straight cut!) While switching from one scene to another, time lapses, and so the denotation of time lapse is appropriate. Straight cuts are lazy editing and cause jarring, abrupt transistions. Straight cuts serve no purpose and are the most unimmaginative way to edit. ;)”

I don’t agree with that at all. There must a lot of lazy Hollywood editors – because I rarely see anything but start cuts in good movies.

The art is in where to cut. It’s the first thing I learned in school.

Pro editors rarely crossfade clips. For example, watch Million Dollar Baby – not a crossfade in it! A couple fade-to-black to denote time lapse, but no crossfades.

Was Clint being lazy?

That entire paragraph was written as a sarcastic joke to point out the extreme, blanket statement you made. Of course it’s not true! And neither is your statement.

[Mike Kujbida]

Watch any well-edited movie and count the number of straight cuts to cross-fades. It will be about 100-1.

How many folks here do feature length movies? My guess is not too many.
The bulk of my personal work is slide shows and I guarantee you that one of these done as cuts-only would be sent back to me to be re-edited 🙂

[Randall Raymond]

[Art] “That entire paragraph was written as a sarcastic joke to point out the extreme, blanket statement you made. Of course it’s not true! And neither is your statement.”OK. So what’s YOUR advice to the guy who wants to automatically cross-fade every clip?

…and no, I’m not going to ‘cross-fade’ into being politically correct here. Cross-fades suck – avoid them and look more professional in your edits.

[Randall Raymond]

[Mike Kujbida] “Watch any well-edited movie and count the number of straight cuts to cross-fades. It will be about 100-1.

How many folks here do feature length movies? My guess is not too many.
The bulk of my personal work is slide shows and I guarantee you that one of these done as cuts-only would be sent back to me to be re-edited :-)”I cut slide shows to the music and move the camera on every shot and keep every shot to 3 seconds or less – straight cuts – no complaints. What are people used to seeing in professional edits? Straight cuts.

What are people use to seeing in non-professional edits? The usual mush.

[Imants Ozers]

OK. So what’s YOUR advice to the guy who wants to automatically cross-fade every clip?

…and no, I’m not going to ‘cross-fade’ into being politically correct here. Cross-fades suck – avoid them and look more professional in your edits.

The guy asked a technical question which was promptly answered. He doesn’t require any further advice. He can use his own free will to edit any way he likes.

Nobody is asking you to use a transistion if you don’t want to.

The more time you spend telling people how skilled and professional you are, the less they believe it.

[Randall Raymond]

[Art] “The guy asked a technical question which was promptly answered. He doesn’t require any further advice.”

Well, he mentioned being a newbie. I was trying to help.

[Mark Van buskirk]

I have a quick question.In a post you mentioned:
“The best cut is a straight cut. Cross fades denote time lapse, usually. Cross fades are sloppy editing and serve no purpose.”

I am editing my home videos, and I was about to use cross fades all over the place to denote time lapse and smoothly transition. ie. transition from one conversation to a later conversation at the dinner table. What do you recommend for a transition in this scenario?

Thanks,
-Mark

[Mike Kujbida]

How about a fade to black and then back up top the new scene?