Transitions for Underwater Video Editing

[And]

Hi

A question for the budding underwater video producers here.

What kinds of transitions are you using for producing your video footage? So far I have pretty much stuck with just a clean cut between one clip and the next, at least with the out of water footage. Recently I have been using the dissolve transition for the underwater footage clips and that seems to work very well, keeps the idea of motion, leads nicely from one clip to the next. I haven't really used any other transitions as I didn't want to create a 'grannys birthday party' type thing. It has to be watchable, if you know what I mean

Watching diving programmes on TV it looks as if they cut from water to out of water regularly but my kind of stuff doesn't really warrant that kind of thing yet.

Do you have any hard and fast rules that you consider when editing your videos?

Are there any other transition effects you have found useful and for what type of footage?

Thanks

Andy

[Mick F]

Hi Andy,

You already are doing it right, so to speak

Nothing distracts more from the footage and ruins the viewing experience than lots of flashy transitions. Stick to clean cuts & dissolves between clips, as a rule of thumb don't let any clip linger for more than 10 seconds, & let the story you are telling come through without annoying the viewer.

HTH.

[Jay]

You could, of course, go for the Star Wars look and use sweeping transitions (e.g. from left to right etc).

[Cussy]

If you watch pro footage you will only see straight cuts. I don't dive with my video camera, but for topside footage my rules are these: straight cut with the occassional dissolve transition (of less than 0.5s) between "chapters" or natural breaks. The over use of transitions separates the bad from the good. I've seen many diving DVDs that look really poor through the overuse of fancy effects - it distracts from the diving. I use Pure Motion to edit video, it has many effects, most of which look professional. I've tried many progams before going for PM and most of these had many of the "granny's birthday" effects.

The art in diving footage is not having half an hour of 10 second clips cut back to back. I try to include 30 second clips or more, although obviously there are times when shorter footage (of at least 10 seconds) can be used. PM is quite good for using stills and zoom effects that can help moving action.
Just my opinion.
Rob

[Andy M]

Originally Posted by And

Do you have any hard and fast rules that you consider when editing your videos?

Are there any other transition effects you have found useful and for what type of footage?

I use clean cut for clips from the same dive, like shark action from different angles etc.

Dissolve for different dives

Fade to black and back when moving between different dive locations

Keep it simple is best policy, snazzy transitions dont work.

Try and tell a story with your video, if you can.

Andy

[MattS]

Nothing annoys me more with 'Pro' footage than the short attention span the viewer is presumed to have. Some of my shots go on for minutes which diving audiences seem to appreciate.

I find a dissolve to be the natural underwater transition. It works well with the neutral lighting and bland colour you find deeper than 30m, where most of my footage is shot. You can get away with a longer dissolve (2 seconds) when the individual clips either side are also lengthy. If at all possible, try to time dissolves alongside a soundtrack.

[Tim Ingmire]

Interestingly, if you watch Blue Planet you'll see that it is rare for a clip to go over 8 seconds let alone 10. Sounds like you're doing it right Andy with the straightfoward transitions.

It also helps if you don't have the same type of camera movement back to back ie. pan l-to-r, r-to-l, zoom in and zoom out - mix 'em up.

Howabout a DIVX sample of your video's?

[And]

Originally Posted by Tim Ingmire

Howabout a DIVX sample of your video's?

Soon mate

[Cussy]

Originally Posted by Tim Ingmire

Interestingly, if you watch Blue Planet you'll see that it is rare for a clip to go over 8 seconds let alone 10.

True Tim, but then they had hours and hours of footage to edit. What you find then is they don't concentrate on a subject for more than a minute or so, using lots of short clips. That won't work for most of us with a limited amount of footage.

I have a cracking video of a dive I did in Hawaii. It has a single cut scene of over 10 minutes of manta rays. It works really well.

Think what I'm trying to say is it really depends on what you have to work with, there is no single rule (although I will still stick by my limited number of tranision rule).

Rob

[And]

Thanks everyone, this is really useful.

Andy