12 Most Used CUTS & Transitions in Hollywood

hey how's it going Parker wall back here with full-time filmmaker comm and today I want to share with you 12 of the most used cuts and or editing transitions used in video editing in previous videos I've shared with you tips and ideas for getting those fancy seamless transitions but as I've mentioned those can quickly become overused and most Hollywood films you watch these days don't hardly use any of those most films use the twelve cuts that I'm about to mention in this video before we get started though big thanks to story blocks for sponsoring this video story blocks video is a great service for when you're in need of a quick video clip for b-roll or an After Effects template or a motion background the thing I personally love and use most on story blocks video are their title animation After Effects presets to quickly up the production value of one of my videos I'll often use one of their title animation presets like the one you saw at the beginning of this video to give you at a much more professional fill with minimal time and effort I highly recommend like in your story blocks video to up the production value of your videos and you can do so by clicking on the link in the description below or go to story blocks comm slash Parker to learn more about story of blocks video but let's now jump into our cuts and transitions cut number one is the clean cut or hard cut or just a basic cut this is when you do a simple cut between one clip to another nothing fancy no crossfades no tricks just a good old-fashioned cut and a lot of the other cuts in transition we'll be talking about today are just variations or elaborations of the clean cut you'll see clean cuts used most often in narrative style films as the camera cuts from a wide shot to a medium shot or to a tight shot or back and forth between two over-the-shoulder dialogue shots in these types of situations trying to introduce some kind of fancy cut in a narrative scene will often just distract the viewer from the story and feel unnecessary and out of place and one thing to keep in mind with any clean cut is to use the 30-degree rule which states that when you do make a clean cut you usually want the second clip to have been shot from an angle of at least 30 degrees away from the first clip if you don't use a different angle when cutting you usually at least want to cut between two different focal lengths or distances from the subject so that from clip 1 and clip 2 you have two different perspectives if you fail to do one or both of these things when cutting between two clips of the same subject matter then you'll likely produce what is called a jump cut which is cut number two a jump cut when used unintentionally usually comes across as unprofessional and/or lazy it makes it look like you didn't get enough angles of the scene you're shooting or that you weren't willing to spend enough time in the editing room to find a better clip to cut to now there are times the jump cuts are used creatively and purposefully for example to show the passing of time or to show urgency or to make a long sequence go by faster for example in a recent commercial edit that I did I had a subject walking into a building that was about a ten-second clip but I only had five seconds to show it in the video so to show the viewer that he walked across the whole room I could either speed up the whole clip or do a jump cut so I cut up the clip several times so that I could more quickly get to the point notice though that I did a digital zoom on the second and fourth clip so as to make the jump cut appear less jumpy and giving the illusion that they were shot on different focal lengths helping sell the cuts as having been shot from two different cameras another tip on creatively using jump cuts is to put your camera on a tripod like you're seeing right now so that only the subject is moving between jumps and not the rest of the background I have a lot of jump cuts in these Talking Heads because I make a lot of mistakes and I cut between breaths or long pauses so that you can more quickly consume my content but these jump cuts don't like is jarring because only I am jumping while the background stays the same but even with consistent unchanging backgrounds I don't love showing jump cuts so I'll often try and cover up my jump cuts with some b-roll that goes over top of this a roll or if I don't have any b-roll to put on top of what I'm saying sometimes I'll just digitally punch in so that the audience can't tell that I made a cut there it just looks like I cut to a different camera angle so personally I'm not a huge fan of the jump cuts but some creators like to creatively use them just be careful with this one if you're not trying to show the passing of time it can come across as unintentional jarring and unprofessional well cut this out so there's a jump cut moving on a cut number three is the L cut L backwards that's an L the L cut this is the same thing as a clean cut visually but the difference is in the audio an L cut means the audio from clip 1 carries over into clip 2 making it into the shape of an L this is most commonly used in dialogue scenes when you have two people talking to each other and while one is still talking you cut to the other to show their reaction of the listening before they actually start responding and talking themselves I'm sorry mrs. Grantham but we reviewed your application and it was very weird and unfortunately you did not get the job open his stop looking at the camera goodness gracious sorry moving on to cut number four is the J cut this is the opposite of an L cut where the audio from clip two starts before you see the visuals making the shape of a J the purpose of the JK is to lead your audience into the next clip making the Edit feel more seamless so that clips that otherwise wouldn't flow very well together seem to flow better because of the audio this is typically used when you're transitioning between two completely different scenes where the visuals are very different so to keep the cup from seeming abrupt the audio helps ease the viewer into a change of scene which means-- brings me to this when I'm sound mixing his video I'm constantly using L&J cuts so that all the audio seems to blend together throughout the video making it feel like one cohesive story I'm moving on now to cut number five is cutting on action this is probably my favorite cut and one that if understood and applied can take an average looking at it and make it look much more seamless and much more professional when I'm editing and choosing where to cut on a given clip I'm always looking for motion or action of my subject this can be something as simple as the turning of a head or someone standing up but as more noticeably used on impact scenes like punches or someone running past camera or slamming a door or a splash jumping into water an example of the time that I often use it is every time at the end of one of my videos I punch the screen and I always cut as my arm fully extends the punch if I cut right before the punch or right after the punch you notice that the cut doesn't look as seamless as when I cut right on the peak of that action effectively cutting on action can sometimes be a matter of just a frame or two so I'm constantly looking for action to cut off of in my clips and I'm often very nitpicky testing out several different frames of a clip until I find the best part of that action to cut off of that most seamlessly transitions into the next clip moving on to cut number six is cross cutting or parallel editing this is when you cut between two pieces of similar action or inter cut between two locations it's often used to establish relationship between two characters or locations and often suggests that the two scenes are happening simultaneously and helps create an emotion of suspense anxiety anticipation or intensity which means-- brings me to this ever since we met two days ago I thought you were so cool will you oh you mean your me and a climax of a cross-cut scene will usually end with both characters confronting each other in the same location confirming that it was happening simultaneously moving on now to cut number seven is the cut away what does this button do this means cutting to an insert shot of something different than the main piece of action and then back again this is usually used as a plan-b when the editor doesn't have enough good clips at his disposal or is trying to cover up a mistake so that his edit can cut seamlessly from clip to clip in the scene so instead of using a jarring jump cut he cuts to something else and then back again to split up that jump cut or that mistake again I do this all the time in my tutorials to hide any jump cuts or mistakes you have the main action talking to the camera right now this is a roll and then to hide a jump cut or mistake I'll cut away to some b-roll news reporters use to cut away all the time they'll be reporting on a location then the cut away to b-roll of things that they're talking about and then cut back to their face talking again and moving on now to cut number eight is the match cut this is another one of my favorites match cuts are often incorrectly referred to as jump cuts they can seem jumpy but a match cut is when you've cut between two shots that share similar action or framing so you'll either match the cut to a piece of action like someone jumping into one location then doing the exact same jump in a new location and then match cutting them together I also recently put together a compilation of testimonials for our full-time filmmaker course and I asked everyone who was sending one in to use the exact same framing so that we could match cut between them another great example of the matka is the typical running across the frame as the background changes moving on now to cut number nine is the smash cut a smash cause basically when you go from something intense to something calm or from something calm to something intense I got to admit I bought my 2012 Hyundai Elantra the typical example of this is when a character is having a loud intense dream and right as a dream hits the climax of the action the character shoots out of bed in his quiet room for the opposite effect sometimes you'll see a calm scene that subtly cuts to a loud car passing by the screaming smash cuts are a great way to keep your audience on their toes by dramatically shifting the intensity of your video or film next up is cut number 10 this is an old-school classic the fade in fade out or crossfade the most typical time you'll see this use is to start or end a scene it's just a softer way than a clean cut to transition in or out of a scene and the crossfade or dissolve is used to softly transition between two clips the time that I most commonly see this use is in a slower paced nature video or a slow paced music video or it can be used to show passing of time or passing into a different world like if someone's daydreaming you can crossfade into their dream world I will say though that one of the biggest rookie mistakes I see beginning editors make is they overuse the crossfade I use it a ton when I first started because I hadn't yet learned any of these other tips on how to make my clean cuts look more seamless I just couldn't figure out how to make the clean cut transition well so I just throw in a crossfade and really the only times I use Crossgates now is when I can't find a good way to cut between two Clips so I'll just fade them in together as a last resort so personally I think this is kind of a lazy man's way of editing so careful not to use too many crossfades unless you are intentionally using them for specific reasons and not just because it's easy and lazy some other old-school transitions like the crossfade are the iris like what you'd see and I shot my eye out or the white like what you'd see in Star Wars old-school transitions like this would look a little bit outdated if you use them today so probably only best use if you're trying to make your edit look old-school or if you just are trying to make some kind of silly edit now next up four cuts number eleven and twelve I want to touch on two of the more modern seamless transitions but these two are in my opinion the least cliche and are still widely used in Hollywood films as long as they are used properly and sparingly so cut number eleven is the camera movement cut essentially it's a match cut but using similar camera movements from clip a to clip B and matching them together in post so if clip a has a whip pan to the right at the end of the clip then clip B would start out the clip with a whip pan to the right then you'd cut them together and the motion blur between the two clips would create a seamless camera movement cut now there's many variations of movements you could do to transition between scenes like a rise up or down transition and using the ground or a second level or a mix between the two of those for that falling out and into frame transition these counter movement cuts are some of the funnest and trendiest cuts to do but don't get carried away with them here and there they can spice up an edit but if you use it on every single cut it becomes expected and it loses its flavor and now for our last and final cut number twelve is the invisible cut this is another type of cut that we could categorize as a trendy seamless transition and is similar to and oftentimes related to the camera movement cut but it usually utilizes an all-white or an all-black frame or a lot of motion blur from something passing in front of the camera in the foreground thus hiding the cut to make it appear like there was no cut ever made the invisible cut was used 34 times in the film 1917 but many people who've seen that film might think that the whole movie was shot on one long take but if you watch closely you'll notice that most of the cuts were made when either something crossed in front of the camera in the foreground or a cut to black in dark moments again this is another one that can look really cool just don't overdo it use it to spice up the Edit but don't use it for every cut so there you have it guys those are 12 cuts and transitions that you can use to improve your edits and make them look more seamless and more professional obviously there's more out there those are just the ones I would call the most widely used my biggest advice though is don't be lazy throwing them presets and crossfades or just using one of these over and over take the time while you're shooting to think ahead of transitions that you want to do and shoot them in camera or take the time in the editing room to find which clips and cut together best and don't just throw two random Clips back-to-back without trying to make them flow together but that's it hopefully that was helpful to watch more filmmaking and editing tips just like this make sure to check out the ultimate online film course at full time filmmaker comm links are in the description lastly don't forget to subscribe and if you guys have any for the questions for me please let me know see that smash-cut there pretty good huh

Channel: Parker Walbeck

Views: 839,341

Keywords: premiere pro, editing, cuts, transitions, parker walbeck, video editing, full time filmmaker, l cut, j cut, smash cut, hard cut, clean cut, jump cut, invisible cut, match cut

Id: VVTZNg-IgGI

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020