Hard cut. Dissolve. Fade to black. Everyone is familiar with these terms from their use as scene transitions in the movies, going back to the days of silent film. And even those who can't immediately define them know their vocabulary from watching movies and television since they were kids.
For anyone making video for the Web, it helps to know what these rules are, even if you plan to break them from time to time. As video producer Chuck Peters explains in one of his instructional videos at Digital Juice.com, in a movie, hard cuts are normally used to switch between camera angles within a scene. (Establishing shot to medium shot to close-up and back, for example) Dissolves are used to indicate a passage of time. Fade-to-black typically indicates a longer passage of time, or the transition to an entirely new segment of the film; that awesome fade-to-black that transitions from boot camp to Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket, for example.
In video, the rules are somewhat looser, if only because for decades, transitions on an electronic video switcher were easier to employ while taping live than editing a film, where historically, transitions were manually cut-in as an optical effect during postproduction editing. This helps explains why it's rare for a movie to have lots of complex transitions. Citizen Kane is the exception that comes immediately to mind; it's loaded with fluid transitions created by Linwood Dunn, RKO's veteran effects man, on his pioneering optical printer.
Swipe On, Swipe Off
In a slight contrast to the vocabulary of movies, video editors often use dissolves between camera angles, or to smooth awkward jumps. And the average non-linear editing (NLE) program includes an arsenal of dissolves, fades to black (Adobe's Premiere Pro CS4 also has fade-to-white; other NLEs may also have this feature), wipes and other transitions.
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