While post-production programs might have dozens of preset transitions to choose from, most of them are off limits when it comes to professional production. Nothing takes a viewer out of a story faster than a cube spin transition. A simple dissolve can work wonders to show the passage of time or a change in location, but what if you’re looking for something a bit more dynamic?
In this segment we show you how to use two types of body wipe transitions using simple shooting techniques, and a little bit of post-production to pull it off.
Using these natural transitions can help make your next project more dynamic without resorting to amateur presets.
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Properly placed transitions can help move a story forward in time, change locations, or link shots together to bring meaning to a scene. Body Wipes are a great way to provide a natural transition that keeps the viewer in the story. Take a look at this scene from Jaws...
Steven Spielberg was trying to figure out how to maintain the Chief of Police’s perspective for the scene, and though it couldn’t be achieved with one shot, using the body wipes gave the scene a more seamless feeling, and also clearly established that the scene was from the police chief’s point of view. Let’s take a look at our example scene without using a transition.
In this scene, we have our actor walking, and then we cut to another scene of a different actor, in a different location. It’s quite a jarring cut, and also a bit confusing.
So, how do we do use a body transition to bridge the two shots? There are two ways. You can have your actor walk directly toward the camera, or have an extra cross from one side of the camera to the other. Let’s take a look at the direct approach.
In the first shot, rather than having our actor walk by, we have them walk toward the camera, and we want them to completely cover the lens before the end of the shot. Now we begin our second shot with our other actor covering the lens, and then walking aways from it. Now the same two shots that seemed unrelated have the natural transition to bridge them.
Keep in mind, it’s important that they cover the entire lens to help us make the cut between the following shot seamless. If your actor can’t quite cover the entire lens, you can try throwing in a quick fade to black, or fade up from black in post production to help sell the effect.
Now let’s look at a different scene. We want to go from the medium shot, to a medium close up, to a close up. Using cuts you can see that the difference between the shots isn’t enough to avoid a jump cut. We can use a second type of body transition to help.
Using the same shots, we’ll have an extra cross the frame at the end of the shot, ensuring that they cover the entire vertical height of the camera. This ensures that we have a clear “line” to use as our wipe point. For our second shot, we’ll have the extra cross in the other direction, again making sure they cover the vertical height of the screen. Now, normally you would want to use a different extra for the second cross, but for demonstration purposes, this will work. Now let’s dive into after effects to finish the transitions.
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We all need a variety of tools to bring our ideas to life on the screen. While cuts and dissolves will always be the bread and butter of video production, unique transitions like body wipes keep your viewer in the scene, and give you a stylish option to help tell your story. Thanks for watching.
