Dissolves

[ramkuma]

I want to know how people feel about dissolves. Do you use them? I have used them in my stuff, but just heard this: "if you can't solve, dissolve"--that a dissolve is a cheap way out for bad editing. Thoughts?

 

[Phil1076]

It depends on what you're producing for. I do wedding videos, where many of the clips are in slow motion or jump to different parts of the day. As such, cross dissolves give that dreamy, non-jarring transition and I use them extensively.

If you're producing a movie or documentary for broadcast then dissolves are usually not needed as the events are usually in some form of logical/chronological order.

I could see dissolves being highly annoying in a broadcast or movie situation, but they work well for weddings.

 

[bruce southerland]

You can use the dissolve much more with event videography- many times a fast dissolve
is more elegant than a cut-but I would not overdo it. We are used to seeing digital presentations of still images with dissolves between each image, so it would not be unusual
to see the same technique used with event video. With film narrative it's a bit different-a dissolve is usually used to denote a gap in time.

 

[voxwerx]

I'm with Bruce on this- dissolves are a way of showing a change in time or space. Tough thing going to school for all of this- then you feel like you have to follow the rules.

 

[8string]

I agree with many of the replies. To me it's a stylistic thing. All about pacing of the story. I'm personally tired of fast cuts. I often see cuts used just like you say about dissolves. Badly. But go look at some modern Oscar winners just to see what the editing is doing. I think that they mix it up. A good one might be True Grit, which is more an old line western told in a modern style. But personally, my dissolves are fairly quick, 2 to 3 seconds? They don't drag.

 

[vcassel]

I helped a friend of a friend out a few weeks ago by filming and editing an interview pitch for a book she was under contract to write. I color corrected warm, blurred it up a bit in layers, and only used dissolves for the cuts--the overall approach was to soften the pitch and make it as friendly as possible. This was my first time dealing in non-narrative, but these choices seemed obvious to me from the get-go.

 

[john threat]

They use dissolve wipes in star wars.

I don't like straight dissolves, looks lazy , unless the foreground material works well with the background behind dissolved to, I..e. Some concurrent imagery that works together like a older style James bond intro.

 

[Jim Simon]

Dissolve wipes? They're pretty much two different things. Not sure how you might combine them.

Did you mean true wipe, where there is no black 'border' between the scenes?

 

[RyanT]

I really don't like dissolves. Like you said, if you're using them, it's probably because you screwed up.

 

[Zak Forsman]

When I worked freelance as an editor there was this one edit bay at this one company that would hire me a lot where a previous editor had scrawled on the wall: "Dissolves are for P*ssies!"

Generally, I concur.