Adding Transitions to Your Own Project

Okay, this time for sure. It really is time to add transitions to your project. If you saved your project, simply click File, Open Recent Project and select your project name.

If instead you simply want to experiment on a few clips, add them to the Project window and drag them in succession to the Timeline Video 1 track.

Now all you have to do is drag and drop transitions to your heart's content to edit points on your project. Try out a whole bunch of transitions. You easily can replace one transition with another by simply dragging the new one on top of the old one. It'll automatically replace the rejected transition.

If you want to lengthen or shorten a transition, simply right-click the purple transition segment, select Duration, and type in a new time. One second is the default transition time.

Task: Preview Your Transitions

Instead of using the Transition Settings slider to preview your transitions, you can use the Program Monitor screen. If your computer has the horsepower, you can preview the transitions in real time. If not, you can scrub through them manually.

Here are the steps to use Real-Time Preview:

To check whether you selected Real-Time Preview during startup (or to select that mode now), select Project, Project Settings, Keyframe and Rendering from the main menu. Make sure you've placed a check mark in the Real-Time Preview box.
Click OK.
Place your edit line in front of the transition you want to preview and press Enter/Return. You should see that transition playing in the Program Monitor screen.

If your computer processor cannot perform a real-time preview smoothly, you can do it manually by using a scrub preview. Here are the steps:

Drag the timeline's edit line to just before your transition.
Release the mouse button.
Press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac), click and hold the edit line, and drag it across the transition. The transition will display in the Program Monitor screen.

This is not true real-time preview, but if you drag the edit line smoothly, it'll be close enough.

Task: Render to View a Transition in Real Time

Once you've created a transition to your satisfaction, you may want to have Premiere "render" it. This process converts the transition from a series of mathematical calculations to a straight video clip, making it easier for Premiere to play it. You'll eventually have to render all such transitions and other effects before you record your project to videotape or to your hard drive later. Therefore, taking care of some individual transitions now will save you time later. Also, these transitions will be displayed smoothly from this point on without the need to use Real-Time Preview or a scrub preview. Here's how you render a transition:

Double-click the yellow bar above the timeline. That shortens the "work area" to only the current active window.
Grab the handles at the ends of the bar (one at a time) and drag them to the edges of the transition you want to render. I've highlighted those handles in Figure 5.17. If Snap To Edges is enabled, the handles will "snap" to the edges of the transition. This tells Premiere to render only that transition.

Figure 5.17. Setting the work area to only your transition makes the rendering brief and gets you to real-time playback more quickly.
Press Enter, which starts the rendering process and pops up a progress indicator like the one in Figure 5.18. Once the process is completed, Premiere automatically plays the rendered transition in real time so you can check out your handiwork.

Figure 5.18. While Premiere "builds" your preview (renders your transition), a little progress indicator pops up.

If you don't like what you see?it's too short, too long, the border is the wrong color or is too thick?simply double-click the transition segment and make some adjustments in the Settings dialog box. To see your fixes in real time, you'll need to do that rendering thing again.

No matter?this is the time to experiment. Look for clips that lend themselves to specific transitions. Try out a variety. Then after you've had some fun, be sure to use transitions judiciously. Restraint is a good thing when it comes to transitions.

To give you an overview of virtually all the transitions Premiere has to offer, see Table 5.1.

Table 5.1. Premiere Transitions
Transition Type	Name	Border/Anti-Aliasing	Forward/Reverse	Custom
3D Motion	Cube Spin	**	**
	Curtain		**
	Doors	**	**
	Flip Over		**	Number of bands/color
	Fold Up		**
	Motion		**	12 motion files
	Spin	**	**
	Spin Away	**	**
	Swing In	**	**
	Swing Out	**	**
	Tumble Away	**	**	Change disappear point
Dissolves	Additive Dissolve
	Cross Dissolve
	Dither Dissolve	**
	Non-Additive
	Random Invert			Invert A or B; change box sizes
Iris	Iris Cross	**	**	Start location
	Iris Diamond	**	**	Start location
	Iris Points	**	**
	Iris Round	**	**	Start location
	Iris Shapes	**	**	Number of shapes; three shape types
	Iris Square	**	**	Start location
	Iris Star	**	**	Start location
Page Peels	Center Peel		**
	Page Peel		**	Start corner
	Page Turn			Start corner
	Peel Back		**
Slide	Band Slide	**	**	Number of bands; movement direction
	Center Merge	**	**
	Center Split	**	**
	Multi-Spin	**	**	Number of boxes
	Push	**	**	Movement direction
	Slash Slide	**	**	Number of slices; movement direction
	Slide	**	**	Movement direction
	Sliding Bands	**	**	Movement direction
	Sliding Boxes	**	**	Movement direction
	Split	**	**	Movement direction
	Swap	**	**	Movement direction
	Swirl	**	**	Number of boxes; percent of movement completed at end
Special	Displace			Various settings
	Image Mask	**		Can use any mask
	Texturize
	Three-D
Stretch	Cross	**	**	Movement direction
	Funnel	**	**	Movement direction
	Stretch	**		Movement direction
	Stretch In			Movement direction
	Stretch Over	**	**	Movement direction
Wipe	Band	**	**	Movement direction
	Barn Doors	**	**	Movement direction
	Checker Wipe	**	**	Movement direction
	Checker-board	**	**	Movement direction
	Clock Wipe	**	**	Movement direction
	Gradient Wipe		**	Movement direction; graphic selection
	Inset	**	**	Movement direction
	Paint Splatter	**	**	Movement direction
	Pinwheel	**	**	Movement direction; number of wedges
	Radial Wipe	**	**	Movement direction
	Random Blocks	**	**	Movement direction; number of blocks
	Random Wipe	**	**	Movement direction
	Spiral Boxes	**	**	Movement direction; width of spiral
	Venetian Blinds	**	**	Movement direction; number of bands
	Wedge Wipe	**	**	Movement direction
	Wipe	**	**	Movement direction
	Zig-Zag Blocks	**	**	Movement direction
Zoom	Cross			Specific movement direction (begin and end)
	Zoom	**	**	Specific opening location
	Zoom Boxes	**	**	Number of shapes
	Zoom Trails			Specific opening location; number of trails

Expert Editing Tips

Forever seared in my brain is one edit. It was in my first "magazine" piece for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. This was back in the mid 1980s. The national Radio and Television News Directors Association had just named KSL the TV news station of the year. An honor KSL would win an unprecedented two years in a row. KSL had the highest rated (by percentage of viewers) news shows in the country. It was a TV news powerhouse. I had just moved there from a medium-sized market and was in awe of the professionalism, the scope of the news operation, and the array of high-tech goodies.

John Crossman, Crossman Post Productions.

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Buried deep in the editing bays was something akin to the command center of the Starship Enterprise. At its helm was John Crossman, KSL's chief editor. For me, having come from a station with no editors (the photographers did all the editing), this was a tad overwhelming. One of my first assignments was a long, feature story on a local piano manufacturer. I had never done a magazine-style piece and handed John a straightforward news-style voiceover. He barely batted an eye.

A couple hours later he called me into his realm wanting to show me how the piece was coming together. It sang. It danced. It had rhythm. I was confounded. The segment ended with a Billy Joel piano crescendo followed by a loud "clip" of a wire cutter snipping a piano string. I looked at John and at all his whiz-bang electronics and said one of the dumbest comments I've ever muttered in my TV career: "This equipment is amazing!" Fortunately he forgave me my egregious error and we got on famously after that.

John spent eight years at KSL and now runs Crossman Post Production (www.xmanpost.com) just outside of Salt Lake City. He provides video editing, graphics, and computer-generated animation for a lengthy list of corporate, educational, and broadcast clients. He's won five regional Emmys, 26 national Tellys, and a slew of other awards.

John is a wonderfully talented guy who has a true passion for the art of editing. Here are his editing tips.

To begin, good editors need certain basic talents:

Rhythm? Life has a rhythm, so does editing. If you can't "feel it," it's very hard to learn.

Visualization? Good editors can see the completed project before they start. The actual editing is just the detail work. The images are already completely edited in their minds.

Patience? Even when you can see it in your mind's eye you will have to make compromises on every project. The true test of an editor is if he can make compromises work well. The best editors make it look like every single choice was the best choice.

Positive attitude? Your attitude will go a long, long way toward determining your success. You will spend numberless hours editing in a small dark space, usually on a deadline, and always with budget pressure, client pressure, spouse pressure…you name it. And the better the attitude, the better the job will go.

Team player? You are part of a team. Try not to criticize the other members. Remember, you didn't have your eye in the viewfinder when the bomb went off. Thinking you could have had that shot when you are looking at the tape hours and miles away is easy but not productive. Let the producer say, "I wish he had gotten closer." You say, "Well let's do it this way and it will still work." That's where the editor earns his money, his reputation, and his loyalty.

To edit well you need to do the following:

Use motivation and logic. This is the most important concept in editing. Your editing should be motivated. You should have a reason for the shots you select and the order in which you select them. There should be a purpose to why you dissolve, why you use a wipe, as well as why you cut. Your goal is to communicate clearly what has happened. Your shot selection and the time spent on each shot should reinforce the narration while conveying information.

Plan as you digitize. As you digitize the video you should see in your mind's eye how the pictures are going to line up to get you to where you want to be at the end. Is the shot a great scene setter (beginning), is it incredibly beautiful (possible ending shot), is it self-explanatory or incomprehensible (possible "cutting-room floor" material)?

Build new skills. If you are in the professional ranks, or want to be, you must budget a considerable amount of time and money on keeping current. At the very least you're going to need to learn about how to incorporate graphics, animation, compositing, and special effects into your editing to serve the demands of your clients.

In the world of broadcast television you are surrounded by people who know how to create good stories. In corporate production you may be working with someone who has no clue. At this point you become 90% teacher and 10% editor. Your attitude will win you a loyal client or lose you a lifetime customer.

Like music in a movie, good editing helps communicate your message and shouldn't really stand out to the viewer. The editing is not the message, but the editing can make the message work, not work, or work better than it should.