Smoother cuts..

[PimpDaddyDA]

Is there a way to get a smoother cut between scenes?

Sometimes while watching a scene to scene image, it's not a smooth transition, a little "choppy" looking. Should I be removing a few frames?

Thanks,
Pimp D

[Shooter]

Do you mean the cut is physically jumping ( like a projector running a slice) or visually jumping (jarring) ?

Smooth visual cuts are achieved by carefully considering the juxtaposed frames. Framing, size, composition movment etc....

A bad decision used to be called a "jump cut" but now days these can be used as an effect.

Some editors used to jump cut because the material was all they had and then try and fix it with a dissolve. I was, and still am, of the school that if it don't work as a cut, it don't work as a dissolve

[Baluardo]

i experienced the same some time ago and now i'm slowly getting more skilled at that. in my opinion it is NOT an editing problem, but a script /planning problem.

I think cutting / making a transition between scenes is even harder than cut shots within a scene.
this is while cutting shots within the scene is merely about editing, getting the right timing, etc, going from one scene to another affects a lot the narration effectiveness. And you dont find as many suggestions in books about that, as you find for stricly editing.
also in most of cases it's a pain to fix scene transitions if you didn't plan it properly in advance (while in shots editing yo ucan usually manage thank to the several angles and takes)

in 'normal' scene pacing (obviously nowadays there are 1000 exceptions) when the scene changes, you will have to give the audience the time to release from their minds the current scene (a few seconds of no-speech and no-content footage) and get prepared for the next one (establishing shots.. slow panning through buildings, in a bar, etc). but i think it's pretty hard to write down rules and theory about that. in my opinion it's better to collect a lot of experience watching films and paying attention on how they do it. that's one of the things you tend to not notice when watching a film (which shows how good they are usually made), while, for example, the photography is pretty obvious.

about the dissolve / fade to black, it totally affects the narration ( eg. you can't dissolve from a scene to another which is happening at the same moment somewhere else), but i admit that it may save the situation sometimes when the cut would be too rough.

Andrea