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Lesson 3


Adding Transitions to Your Story


There's more to creating an interesting video story than simply placing your clips one after the other. By adding transitions between the clips, you help define flow, feeling, and pace in your story.

When you add transitions to your story, they are built or "rendered" immediately as you add them. Building processes the transition in relation to the two clips on either side of it. This lets you see how the clips will blend together in your final story.

Add a transition

At this point in the tutorial, your story starring Rex the dog contains five clips. Currently the clips are connected with simple cuts, which are instantaneous switches from one clip to the next. Depending on the clips, a quick switch might be desirable or even unnoticeable. Other times, a simple cut might look abrupt or jerky, and have a jarring effect you'd like to improve.

By adding some transitions between the clips, you can smooth out this jarring effect so the clips flow one into the other. In this next task, you'll add a fade transition between the first two clips of the story.

NOTE: A fade is one of the most common transitions used in professional video. A fade dissolves the end of one clip into the beginning of another.


To add a transition:
  1. Click the Transitions button on the toolbar or choose View>Effects. The Effects window appears. (Many more transitions become available when you upgrade to the complete version of IntroDV.)

  2. Make sure that Transitions is highlighted in the left side of the window, and that you see the list of available transitions in the right side of the window.
  3. Click to highlight the Cross Fade transition and drag it down to the Story window, placing it between the first two clips in the story (eyes.mov and walking out red door.mov).

    NOTE: When you place the pointer precisely between two clips, the ends of the clips change to signify that you're adding a transition.

    The Cross Fade dialog box appears and gives you a preview of the transition.

  4. For now, leave all the settings in the Cross Fade dialog box as they are and click OK.

    The Progress dialog box appears and shows you a progress bar while IntroDV builds the transition. When it is through, you'll see the transition added in between the clips in the Story window.

Play the story

IntroDV automatically builds the transition into your story each time you add or modify its settings. This allows you to play the story to see how the transition looks.


To play the story:
  1. Make sure the Story Time marker in the Story window is at the beginning of your story.
  2. Click the Play Story button beneath the Story Player. IntroDV plays back the story with the fade transition you've added.

NOTE: Playback might appear jerky if you're viewing the story in the Story Player on your computer screen. Playback is much smoother if you view the story using your camcorders LCD or a separate TV monitor attached to your camcorder. Choose View>Options>Camera and check the Display to Camera During Playback option to view playback through your camera instead of your computer.

Add remaining transitions

Now you'll add a variety of transitions between the remaining clips. As you work with the various transitions, notice that although each transition dialog box has its own particular settings and options, they all have percentage settings at the top. These settings control how the clip on each side of the transition is affected by the transition itself.


To add another transition:
  1. Make sure the Effects window is still visible. If it isn't, click the Transitions button or choose View>Effects to open it.
  2. Drag the Wipe transition in between the second and third clips (walking out red door.mov and with hedgehog.mov) in the Story window. The Wipe transition dialog box appears and shows you a preview of the transition.

  3. Change the wipe type to Barn Vertical by selecting it from the Wipe Type drop-down list. Note how the preview changes: a "barn door" opens in one clip revealing the second clip beneath it.

  4. At the top of the dialog box, drag to change the first percentage setting to 25% and the second percentage setting to 75%.

    Notice in the preview that now the barn door is partway open when the transition starts. (This is a result of the 25% setting.) Similarly, at the end of the transition, the barn doors don't open completely to the edges of the screen as they did previously (an effect of the 75% setting).

  5. Leave the rest of the settings as they are and click OK. IntroDV builds the transition in your story.

So far, you've placed two transitions into your story. Now, using the skills you learned, add two more transitions between the remaining three clips. If you like, you can experiment with the various settings to see how they affect the transitions.

NOTE: Aesthetically, you probably wouldn't want to have this many types of transitions in such a short story. After all, you want the focus of your story to be on the content of your clips, not on the transitions themselves. So when you're creating your own video story, don't be afraid to use transitions, but stick to a coordinating theme; don't feel you have to use one of every type.

More about transitions

By default, a transition is 30 frames long (25 frames in PAL), which is equal to one second. You can shorten or lengthen a transition by dragging its edges in the Story window.

If you lengthen a transition, it takes place over greater portions of your clips, possibly obscuring part of them. Likewise, if you shorten a transition, it occurs more quickly, leaving longer portions of your clip viewable. Sometimes you might want a longer transition (a slow fade for example), but at other times you'll want a shorter transition.

NOTE: When you add a transition, you don't increase the overall length of your story. Rather, the transition blends the clips from beyond the cut points.

You can learn more about transitions by referring to the IntroDV User's Guide. But for now, save your project and proceed to the next lesson where you'll print your story to videotape.


Digital Origin
http://www.digitalorigin.com
Phone: (650) 404-6300
460 East Middlefield Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
support@digitalorigin.com
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