The red arrows below show the clips handles, those parts of the clip that are outside of the Range or In and Out points of the clip. The Range of a clip is set by dragging the ends of a clip in the Clip Browser, denoted by a yellow box. A clips' handle is the video that falls outside of a clips In and/or Out points or Range, as it's called in FCP X. When using 'Available Media', the video used in the transition is drawn from the clip handles. You can set the default transition length in the FCP Prefs in the Editing tab, shown below with a default transition length of 1 second.įor those of you coming from legacy versions of FCP, 'Available Media' is what you will be familiar with. These two different methods of 'Applying' a transition work very differently so we'll look at each one separately. If there is not enough Available Media to perform the transition, FCP will now ask you if you want to use the '(Full) Overlap' method for your transition. 'Available Media' is now the method that FCP 10.0.3 uses to apply transitions between clips, utilizing media that falls outside the clips In and Out points. 'Full Overlap' which is how iMovie handles transitions and 'Available Media' which is how legacy versions of FCP handled transitions.
Up until the 10.0.3 FCP update there were two different types of transitions. FCP has some 90 different transitions to choose from.
Think of the old Batman TV show with all of of its over the top graphical wipes. The second type of transition, the Wipe, has a very graphical look to it like a Clock Wipe, Page Peel, or a Cube Spin. Fades, like 'Dip to Color' (fade to black) are often used to denote a passage of time, Cross Dissolves can help denote a passage of time as well. There are a number of different types of transitions, most common are, cross dissolves, fades and wipes. Transitions are an effect by which the end of the out going clip is merged or blended with the start of the incoming clip, often with both the out going and incoming video seen on screen simultaneously for a short period of time. This is most often achieved by using transitions. However, when a scene ends, we may want to convey to the audience, a passage of time, location or even mood. When working on a Project in FCP, clips from within a scene are often put end to end, in what we call straight cuts this creates the feeling that the scene is happening continuously. Download the ePub iPad/iPhone version of this article.