It's time to turn our attention to adding dynamic energy to videos with transitions, effects, and transforms. In this tutorial, we'll explore adding some basic cross dissolve transitions and modifying a transitions duration, as well as trimming and extending media after adding dissolves. In Final Cut, open the projects event, select the Module 4, keyword collection, and project 401, adding cross dissolves. This is a pretty basic montage of some drawn images that we'd like to add some transitions to. To add a basic cross dissolve between two clips, click either side of the edit point and press "Command t". A little gray bar appears between the two clips. If you move your skim or back a little and play, you'll see that one clip dissolves into the other. Again, just clicking one side of the edit point and hitting "Command t" adds a gray bar for transition, it doesn't have to be between two clips. Adding a transition at the start of your project inserts a clip that fades from black, and at the very end of your project, the clip fades to black. Occasionally, you'll click an edit point and see a red bracket instead of a yellow bracket. Press "Command t", and a pop-up message indicates there's not enough extra media beyond clip edges to create the transition. It asks if you want to ripple trim your media. This doesn't mean the transition can't be added, but it will shorten your project a bit. Assuming the default duration of transitions is one second, your project may contract by up to one second. To add a transition without changing the duration of your project, Final Cut uses handles to create the transition. Handles are the unused portions of clips beyond the original clip ranges. For example, the parts of the clip you didn't use. If you have no handles, Final Cut has to forcibly create them, which will contract your project. When I click "Create Transition", the project gets a tiny bit shorter. In many projects, it's really not a big deal. But if you're working on a very precisely time project such as a 30-second commercial or music video, it can have a negative ripple effect further down the timeline. After adding a transition, you may decide to change the duration of it. One way to do this is to zoom in on the transition with the Command plus key, and treat it like an accordion. Click either inside edge of the transition and squeeze it inward or pull it apart and it will get shorter or longer. The numbers that appear above the transition shows how long the duration changes by. Final Cut also has the ability to change the default duration of transitions. In the Final Cut Pro menu, select "Preferences", and then go to the editing tab. There's a setting for duration of transitions. I'm going to keep this at one second, but you can set it to whatever you like. Close the window and zoom back out with Shift z. After adding transitions, you may want to change the clips length. It may seem a little tricky at first if you zoom in to make a clip shorter. Normally I would grab the edge of a clip and drag it. However it's not letting me do that because it's just changing the duration of the transition. Instead, you need to click and drag from the two little lines in the corners of the transitions. If trying to shorten the clip, go to the far corner and click and drag. This shortens the clip without changing the duration of the transition. I'll zoom back out once more with Shift Z. To delete a transition, simply click and hit "Delete". If you want to add the default transition to all possible edit points in a montage, the fastest and easiest way is selecting all the clips with command a and hitting "Command t". The default transition with a default duration is added. In this tutorial, we learned how to add a basic cross dissolve, change a transitions duration, and trim and extend media after adding cross dissolves. Next, we'll explore more of Final Cuts many transitions.
