Adding Default Transitions to a Sequence

When editing video, every time you have an edit or a cut, there is a transition. The simplest transition is when you move from one scene to the next without any effect applied. This is the transition that experienced videographers use most often.

However, sometimes moving from one clip to the next without any special effect added can come across as awkward to viewers. In these cases, it may help to use an effect to create a more stylized transition.

Cross Dissolve is the default video transition used in Premiere Pro. It is a standard type of transition that can be used to smooth out a cut or to mix two clips to create a softer transition.

Premiere Pro also comes with 3 audio transitions: Constant Gain, Constant Power, and Exponential Fade. These are all considered to be Crossfades. Constant Power is the default audio transition. This transition decreases the audio for the first clip slowly at first and then quickly toward the end of the transition. On the second clip, it increases the audio quickly at first and then more slowly toward the end. Overall, it creates a smooth, gradual audio transition.

Let's add the default audio and video transitions to our sequence now. We'll want to make sure the Timeline panel is the active panel before continuing.

Step 1. To make the Timeline panel the active panel,

Click on a blank area of the Timeline

Step 2. To select everything on the Timeline, on the keyboard, press:

Control key+A

Step 3. To quickly add default video and audio transitions to this sequence, on the Menu bar,

Click Sequence, Click Apply Default Transitions to Selection

NOTE: If you didn't trim the ends of the clips in a previous exercise, or didn't trim enough off the end of a clip, you'll see a warning dialog box informing you that there are not enough extra frames to add transitions to some of the clips. We won't worry about this for this project, but you can see why having extra unused footage at the beginning and end of a clip is important.

Transitions have now been added to the sequence. Let's take a look at the transitions on the Timeline.

Step 4. Zoom in on the timeline until you can see the transitions between clips better.

Standard transitions are typically double-sided, but some of the transitions that were added to our movie are positioned at the beginning of a clip and others were added at the end of a clip. Only a few combine the last video or audio material from the clip before the cut with the first material from the clip right after the cut. This happened because there was not always enough extra media between the clip's start time and In point (head material) or from its Out point and the end of the media (tail material), so Premiere made some adjustments.

The Adobe programmers assume that a good videographer does not want a transition to occur during the essential action in a scene, so if there is not enough head or tail material, Premiere uses repeated frames to cover the duration of the transition. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does affect the way the transition unfolds.

Step 5. Preview several of the transitions in the Program monitor.

Step 6. Save the project.