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April 22ndThe argument in one line.
Most videos only need one of three transition types — a wipe/slide, a camera-movement match, or a well-placed cut — and using more than three different styles in one video turns transitions into visual noise instead of a storytelling tool.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You edit talking-head or B-roll-heavy YouTube videos and want a clear rule for when to use a transition versus a plain cut.
- You edit in DaVinci Resolve and want to build a wipe/slide or whip-pan transition manually using keyframes, easing curves, and Fusion modifiers.
- You've been adding transitions on nearly every cut and suspect your edits are starting to feel busy or amateurish.
SKIP IF…
- You edit exclusively in Premiere Pro or Final Cut and need the effect logic without Resolve-specific Fusion node instructions.
- You're looking for a big library of stylized transition ideas — this video argues for restraint, not variety.
The full version, fast.
A professional editor argues that almost every video only needs one of three transition types: a wipe/slide for high-contrast cuts (A-roll to text slate, B-roll to B-roll), a camera-movement transition like a whip pan for shots that already share motion, and — most of the time — a plain cut enhanced with sound, matching shapes, or matching movement. He walks through building the wipe and whip-pan manually in DaVinci Resolve with keyframes, easing curves, and Fusion modifiers, then shows the shortcut version using a preset pack. The real lesson is restraint: using more than three transition styles in one video turns them into visual noise the viewer stops noticing, so before adding one, ask whether it's serving the story or just showing off.
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00:00 – 00:27
01 · Don't Use More Than 3 Transitions
Cold open states the thesis: only three transition types matter, and using more than that can make an edit look worse.
00:27 – 01:33
02 · Transition 1: Wipe/Slide
Introduces the wipe/slide transition and when to use it — high-contrast cuts like A-roll to a text slate, not between similar shots.
01:33 – 03:08
03 · The Manual Way To Set This Up
Builds the wipe using DaVinci Resolve's built-in edge wipe transition — angle, border, feathering, and easing curves.
03:08 – 04:29
04 · The Easy Way To Do This Transition
Switches to a custom preset wipe transition that adds a push/slide effect the built-in wipe can't do, plus motion blur.
04:29 – 06:01
05 · Transition 2: Camera Movement
Introduces camera-movement transitions (whip pans, rotation, zoom) and the rule that they should match motion already in the clips.
06:01 – 10:37
06 · The Manual Way To Set This Up
Builds a whip-pan transition from scratch in Fusion using an adjustment clip, Transform node, keyframes, and an Anim Curve modifier.
10:37 – 11:54
07 · The Quick Way To Do This
Shows the packaged preset version of the camera-movement transition with direction, zoom, rotation, shake, blur, and flash options.
11:54 – 12:24
08 · The Big Warning
Warns that overusing transitions turns them into visual noise and becomes annoying for the viewer — always ask if it's helping the video.
12:24 – 15:26
09 · Transition 3: The Cut
Argues a well-placed cut beats a transition, covering sound match cuts, graphic cuts, and movement cuts.
15:26 – 15:49
10 · Transitions Are Just One Piece of the Puzzle
Closes by pointing to a follow-up video on other editing lessons from the creator's ten years of professional editing.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A transition should only be used when there's genuine contrast between two clips — a wipe between two similar A-roll shots looks pointless, while cutting directly to a different scene feels natural.
- Camera-movement transitions like whip pans work best when they match motion already happening in the surrounding clips, not when they're added arbitrarily for energy.
- A well-placed plain cut is often a better choice than a transition — sound-matched cuts, shape-matched cuts, and movement-matched cuts can feel more seamless than any transition effect.
- The most common transition mistake isn't a bad transition, it's using too many different types in one video, which turns them into visual noise the viewer stops noticing.
- A sound match cut works by lining up two similar impact sounds across a cut — for example a car door slamming into a firework popping — so the audio, not the visual, sells the transition.
- A graphic cut works when the shape or subject position in one frame lines up with the next, keeping the viewer's eye anchored instead of forcing it to search the new frame.
- On a jump cut within the same shot, keeping the subject's eyes in the exact same screen position across the cut is what makes it read as seamless instead of a jarring jump.
- The manual whip-pan setup in DaVinci Resolve requires splitting the transition into two separate half-clips, each running the animation curve at 0.5 time scale, so the motion doesn't mirror incorrectly across the cut point.
Three tools decide whether a cut needs a transition.
EDITING RESTRAINT
The strongest editors aren't drawing from a big transition library — they're choosing between exactly three tools and defaulting to the plain cut whenever a transition wouldn't earn its place.
02Transition 1: Wipe/Slide
- The wipe/slide transition works best when there's real contrast between the two clips it connects, like cutting from A-roll to a full-screen text slate or between very different B-roll shots.
- Using a wipe between two similar shots, like two angles of the same A-roll take, looks pointless — a plain cut feels more natural when the clips already resemble each other.
03The Manual Way To Set This Up
- DaVinci Resolve's built-in edge wipe transition lets you set the wipe angle, add a colored or feathered border, and control direction from the effects library.
- Setting a transition's easing to 'in and out' smooths motion that otherwise moves at one constant speed, and switching to a custom curve lets you exaggerate that easing further by dragging the curve handles.
04The Easy Way To Do This Transition
- The built-in wipe transition can't slide the images as it wipes — that combined wipe-and-push effect requires a custom preset with adjustable push strength and separate in/out easing controls.
- Adding motion blur to a wipe transition is what makes it read as smooth and professional rather than mechanical.
05Transition 2: Camera Movement
- Camera-movement transitions like whip pans, rotations, and zooms work best when they match motion already happening in the surrounding clips, not when they're added arbitrarily for energy.
- The intention behind a camera-movement transition doesn't have to be about motion alone — it can also connect an action in one clip to its consequence in the next, like a hand pressing a switch cutting to the lights it controls.
06The Manual Way To Set This Up
- A manual whip-pan transition in DaVinci Resolve is built with an adjustment clip, a Transform node in Fusion, and keyframes moving the image's center position from 0.5 to -0.5.
- Setting the Transform node's edges to 'mirror' fills the blank space left by the moving image, and an Anim Curve modifier — not raw keyframes — lets the displacement follow a proper easing curve.
- Because the transition has to work identically for the outgoing and incoming clip, the adjustment clip needs to be split into two separate halves, each running the animation at 0.5 time scale, or the motion mirrors incorrectly.
07The Quick Way To Do This
- A packaged whip-pan preset can combine direction, zoom, rotation, camera-shake, blur, and flash options, replacing a manual Fusion setup with a few toggles.
08The Big Warning
- Camera-movement transitions lose their impact if used on every other cut — at that point they stop standing out and become visual noise, which is actively annoying for the viewer.
- Before adding a transition, the real test is whether it's helping the video communicate something or whether it's just there to show off editing skill.
09Transition 3: The Cut
- A well-placed plain cut is often a better choice than a transition — years spent forcing a transition to work can be wasted effort compared to just cutting.
- A sound match cut lines up two similar impact sounds across the cut point, like a car door and a firework, so the audio sells the transition instead of a visual effect.
- A graphic cut works when the shape or subject position in the outgoing frame lines up with the incoming frame, so the viewer's eye doesn't have to search the new image — the same principle behind keeping a subject's eyes in the same screen position across a jump cut.
- A movement cut connects two shots that already share the same camera or subject motion direction, so the cut feels continuous rather than abrupt.
Terms worth knowing.
- Wipe/slide transition
- A transition where one clip visually wipes across or pushes another off screen, often paired with a slide so the incoming image slides in as the outgoing one slides out.
- Edge wipe
- A built-in DaVinci Resolve transition found in the effects library that wipes from one clip to the next along a chosen angle, with optional colored border and feathering.
- Easing (animation curve)
- A setting that controls acceleration and deceleration on a transition's motion — 'in and out' eases into and out of the movement instead of moving at one constant speed.
- Whip pan transition
- A fast, blurred camera-movement transition that simulates the camera whipping quickly between scenes, most effective when it matches motion already present in the surrounding clips.
- Adjustment clip
- A clip placed on a track above the timeline in DaVinci Resolve that applies an effect, like a transform or blur, to everything beneath it without altering the original clips.
- Fusion page
- DaVinci Resolve's node-based compositing workspace, used to build custom transform and modifier setups for effects like camera-movement transitions.
- Anim Curve modifier
- A DaVinci Resolve Fusion modifier that drives a parameter, such as displacement, along an automatic easing curve instead of manually placed keyframes.
- Sound match cut
- A cut timed so a sound at the end of one clip and a sound at the start of the next are similar in character, such as two impact sounds, making the cut feel connected.
- Graphic cut
- A cut where the shape, composition, or subject position in the outgoing frame closely matches the incoming frame, so the eye doesn't have to search the new image.
- Movement cut
- A cut placed between two shots that share the same camera or subject movement direction, so the motion feels continuous across the cut.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
00:00
“You only need three transitions to edit any video, and in fact, for some videos, you only need one.”
12:19
“Is this actually helping the video, or is it just me trying to show off a little bit?”
12:36
“It took me a few years of editing to realize that a lot of the times a well placed cut is actually better than a transition. I've spent so many hours trying to force a transition to look good when actually a cut was the best option all along.”
Word for word.
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metaphorstory
You only need three transitions to edit any video, and in fact, for some videos, you only need one. So in this video, I'll show you what they are, how to use them, and why using more than three different types of transitions in one video could actually make your edit look worse. Oh, and if you don't know what a transition is, it's basically a way to go from one clip to another.
That was a transition. So here's the first of three transitions. It's the wipe slash slide transition and it looks like this.
That was a wipe transition coming down from the top of the screen and you could have a wipe where the image also slides in a bit as well like this. I've used this transition so many times when I've been editing videos for YouTubers and worldwide brands.
It's such a clean way to transition between clips, And because it's nice and smooth, it's not gonna appear jarring or in your face like some transitions can be. So when would I use this? Well, I use this mainly when I'm going from an a roll or b roll clip to a full screen text slate or a screen that's showing some images like this or back to the a roll or b roll like this.
Basically, when there's a lot of contrast between the two clips, then the wipe is a really nice transition to use. But if the two clips are too similar, then I would avoid using it.
Because if I was to use it on my a roll like this, then it looks a bit weird and pointless. Whereas cutting to this completely different clip feels natural. So how do you do this transition?
Well, there's a couple of options. The first is by using the edge wipe transition. This transition is built into Resolve and can be found in the effects library under video transitions.
So you can drag and drop it from here onto your clip. So the edge wipe will do the wipe effect like this, and you can use the angle control to choose whether it goes left to right or top to bottom or however you want it to be.
You can also add a colored line by using the border control and choose the color of it here, or you can turn the border into a feathered border with the feather checkbox if you prefer that effect. Personally, I prefer having a thin colored line or no line, but it depends on the video.
Now, as you can see, it looks a bit bland because it's just wiping across at a single speed. So to make it look smoother, you can come over to the easing and then set it to in and out, which means it's going to ease into the animation and then ease out at the end.
But to me, it looks too subtle. And you can actually see the animation curve for this if you come up to keyframes and then click on this button here to show the curve.
So if I set it back to none, can see it's just going in a straight line, which is one single speed. And then if I set it to in and out, then you can see the easing at the start and the end here. But you can actually increase the easing if you set this to custom, and then you can drag over the handles like this, and then pull them over on both ends.
And now there's a lot more easing, and it looks a lot smoother to me. The basic transition doesn't, however, have the option to slide the images as well. So for that, I use my own wipe transition that you can find in my essentials preset pack.
So if I add my wipe transition, you can choose the direction from all of these buttons here. So let's go with left to right.
And down here at the bottom, you can enable a colored line and then choose the color and the size of that as well. And you can also add a drop shadow or a glow to the line if you like as well. And then we've got this button here, enable push.
So now you can see that it adds a nice subtle push to the transition which goes in the same direction as the wipe. And you can use the push strength slider to adjust how much you want the images to slide as well. So if I bring it down, then it's very subtle.
But if I bring it up to full, then it will basically slide the first image off as the second one slides on like this. I like to keep it more subtle in the middle like this. That looks really nice to me.
And then up here, you can use these drop downs to set the in and out easing separately. Or if you want to adjust the curve manually, then you can hit the curve button and adjust it in the same way as I did with the built in transition.
So there's a lot of options with this. And of course, you can add motion blur so it looks even smoother. And like I said, my transition is part of my preset pack which you can find on my website in the description below.
Next up, we have transition number two, camera movement transitions. These transitions simulate the movement of a camera. The most common one being a whip like this.
Some other camera movements would also be a rotation or zooming in or out like this. These transitions can be good for adding energy to an edit and they're especially useful if they're used with clips that match the movement of the transition.
So if you have a clip like this where the camera's moving from left to right and then if the next clips got that same left to right motion again, then adding a whip to the right here would work really well because it's following the movement of both the clips. And that's the main thing to remember with these transitions.
You want the transition to be guided by what's going on in the clip. So for example, if I've got my a roll like this, I'm not gonna add a whip transition to another piece of a roll where I'm just sitting here looking straight at the camera, but if I turn my head to the side like this and have a quick right to left whip like I did just there, then that transition works a lot better because it's got intention behind it rather than just chucking it in just for the sake of it.
And the intention doesn't always have to do with motion. So let's use this b roll as an example. The first clip has someone pressing buttons to change the ceiling lights and then the next clip shows those ceiling lights changing.
So you could actually use a whip up transition here because the action in the first clip is directly translating to what happens in the second clip, which we know is above them. So it works quite well here as well. So how do you do camera movement transitions like this in DaVinci Resolve?
Well, I'll start by showing you how you can set up the whip pan transition first. So to do this, you can add an adjustment clip above your two clips and then line it up so it's roughly the same amount of frames either side of the cut point.
And then open up the fusion page and select the adjustment clip node here. And then you want to click on this symbol here, which adds a transform node in between your adjustment clip and your media out one node. The transform node has basic transform controls, so things like position, size, and rotation.
So if you want this to look like the camera's whipping to the right, we need to move the image to the left like this. So we want to place the playhead anywhere in the timeline and then set a keyframe by clicking on this keyframe symbol here. Then we need to move the play head on a few frames and then move the clip all the way to the left.
So the starting position of the center control is 0.5 and all the way over to the left is minus 0.5. So now you can see it goes from the middle to the left.
Next, we want to come down to edges and set this to mirror. I'll explain why we do that in a minute. Now that we've set these key frames, you'll see that we can now click on this modifier tab which shows that it's automatically created a path modifier.
And this displacement value down here is going from zero to one between our two key frames. Don't worry if you haven't used fusion much and this looks complex. If you copy exactly what I'm doing, it'll work in the exact same way.
So now we want to control the displacement slider with a modifier that will basically animate this control automatically, so we're not tied down to the key frame positions. So to do that, we just need to double click on the displacement name here and then single click on the red key frame symbol here.
Now you can see I can move the slider and it will move like this. Now to add a modifier to the displacement control, we just need to right click it, come down to modify with, and then select anim curves. And this pops up with this Anim Curve modifier.
So now you can see we've got the path modifier, which is on the center control, and now we have the Anim Curve modifier, which is on the displacement control.
Next, we're gonna change the source from transition to duration because this is its own clip. So we want it to last the duration of the clip. Whereas if it was an actual transition like the ones that you can drag and drop into the middle of two clips, then you would keep it as transition.
Then we want to change the curve to easing. So linear would mean there's no easing. It's just one linear speed, whereas here we can now choose the easing for the in and the out.
You've also got the option to pick custom, so you can use an actual curve. But for this example, I'm gonna go with easing and set the in and the out both to expo. So there's a good amount of easing at the start and the end of the transition.
So now it looks like this, which is not what we want because the second clip is mirrored. So here's where I'm gonna do something slightly different.
I'm gonna cut the adjustment clip into two separate clips at the cut point between the two clips. I'm then gonna move the playhead over the first clip and open up the fusion page. And on my anim curve modifier, I'm gonna change the time scale to 0.5.
This means it's only gonna do the first half of the transition. And now we want to set up the second clip so it does the second half of the transition. So I'm gonna open up the second clip on the fusion page and change the time scale on this clip to also be 0.5, and then change the time offset to be minus one.
This means it's only gonna do the second half of the transition. Now the only issue is it's still mirrored and that's where these off offset and scale controls come into play. So we can use the offset control to essentially offset where the animation starts from.
So if we set this to minus one, it's going to essentially push the animation back a whole step. So if I turn off the mirror, you can see it better here. It's now coming into the frame like this as opposed to leaving the frame like this.
So I'll set this back to mirror and the reason why we've got this on mirror is to fill in the blank parts of the image. You could also use duplicate or wrap as well, but mirror normally has the best results because it's mirroring the edge of that frame. And that's it.
You've now got separate handles for the first and second half of the transition that you can drag left or right to easily change the length of it. So you can make it longer like this or shorter like this. And you can come back to the Fusion page, click on the transform node, come to settings, and then check this motion blur box here to add motion blur.
Just make sure you do it to the first and the second halves like this as they're now separate clips. And now that looks nice and smooth like this. But of course, that can be a lot of clicking around.
So as always, I do have a preset in my pack which has all of this set up already and a bunch more extras as well. So if you've got my pack, then you can use my camera movement transitions here.
It comes as a transition that you can place between two clips like this or as a generator that you can place on the track above and then just make the cut and press second half. And now it works in a similar way to how I showed you earlier. So with my transition, you've got a bunch of different options to choose from.
You can have a whip that goes in any direction you like, you can have it zoom in or out, it can rotate, it can do a camera shake transition, you can add a blur or a flash. It's got all of these different options built into it which you can mix and match together however you like.
So if I just switch a bunch of these on and hit play, then you can see it does all of them together like this. It just saves a lot of time rather than having to manually set all up for yourself. So if you're interested in saving time with your editing with transitions like this along with my wipe transitions and nineteen nineteen other time saving presets which includes transitions, effects, generators, and titles, then check out my essentials preset pack in the description below.
But I do have a warning about transitions like this. It's great to have them in your arsenal because they can really level up your videos, but only if you don't overdo them.
Because if you use these on every other cut, then it means that they just turn into and none of them stand out anymore.
And worst of all is actually becomes annoying for the viewer. So if you add a transition, you need to ask yourself, is this actually helping the video or is it just me trying to show off a little bit?
And talking about not overdoing transitions actually leads me onto my third transition, which technically isn't even a transition at all because it's just simply a cut.
It took me a few years of editing to realize that a lot of the times a well placed cut is actually better than a transition. I've spent so many hours trying to force a transition to look good when actually a cut was the best option all along. Now I know a cut might sound boring, but there's actually a bunch of different types of cuts and the best videos and films use them all of the time without you even realizing.
The first is a cut which is enhanced with audio. The most popular way to use audio for a cut is the sound match cut. This is where you cut from one clip to another by matching two similar sounds.
So an example of this would be if the first shot cuts on a car door shutting and then the second shot starts with a firework going off. So this works because they're both impact sounds. So if you keep both sounds in and have them play at the same time, it works really well.
Another way you can use audio when you're cutting is by adding sound effects to a cut. Like here, I could add a mouse click to a transition to some text text or add a keyboard noise to a transition back. And there's also cutting to the beat of a song like in this example.
The next next type of cut is a graphic cut. This is where the shape of your subject in your frame or the composition of your clip matches with the next clip like this. Both shots have a circular shape in the middle that line up perfectly with each other.
And another example is this spinning die here cutting to a basketball spinning. Even a cut where both subjects are in the same place on the screen works as well because you don't want your viewers eyes to have to search the screen for what they're supposed to look at. So if you can guide your viewers eye by keeping things in the same place on screen, then that really helps.
It's why I always say when you're doing a jump cut on a roll footage like this, you need to make sure the eyes are in the exact same place either side of the cut. It just makes the cut more seamless as opposed to this where it very much feels like a noticeable jump.
The next type of cut is a movement cut. So if you have two shots where a camera's moving from left to right for example, then you can add a cut in the middle of those clips to create a movement cut which feels natural because the movement is the same in both shots.
This can also be used if the subjects in a shot is moving in a specific direction as well and is then matched with the next shot. There's loads of other different cuts out there as well. But hopefully that gives you some ideas of how a cut might be a better option than trying to force in a transition.
And that's definitely not to say don't ever use transitions and get creative with your editing. It's more just saying that if you use those good looking transitions sparingly, then they'll have way more impact than if you overdo them.
But knowing how to use transitions isn't the only thing that I've learned in over ten years of editing videos professionally. So click here to watch this video where I show you 20 other lessons I've learned after editing over 3,000 videos.
And lesson 10 is something that sped up my editing speed an unbelievable amount.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
A working editor opens by collapsing an entire category of editing decisions down to three transitions, promising to show what they are, how to build them in DaVinci Resolve, and why reaching for more than three in one video usually hurts the edit rather than helping it.
Named ideas worth stealing.
04:29list
The 3 Transitions
- Wipe/Slide Transition
- Camera Movement Transitions
- The Cut
The video's core structural framework — a menu of exactly three transition types, revisited as a title card between each section.
Steal forany tutorial format that wants viewers to feel the scope is finite and masterable
13:02list
Three Ways to Enhance a Cut
- Audio-enhanced cut (sound match cut, added SFX, or cutting to the beat)
- Graphic cut (matching shape or subject position)
- Movement cut (matching camera or subject motion)
Breaks 'the cut' — described as barely a transition at all — into three deliberate techniques for making a plain cut feel intentional.
Steal forany montage or vlog edit where you want seamless cuts without adding transition effects
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
15:33next-video
“So click here to watch this video where I show you 20 other lessons I've learned after editing over 3,000 videos.”
Verbal redirect to a related video, seeded immediately after wrapping the third transition topic, paired with an on-screen click prompt — a standard end-of-video watch-time redirect rather than a product pitch.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
Visual structure at a glance.
