5: Transition
- Page ID
- 358875
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Transition is a cue to the editor on how scenes should transition. Most of the time, these transitions are not necessary in screenwriting as cuts constantly change in the editing room and that as scenes change, it is largely accepted that the scenes would transition via a cut, rendering the transition CUT TO pointless. Also in spec scripts, it's not advised to write in transitions as directors may have a different creative vision on how to shoot and edit the script.
Still, we will cover the most commonly used transitions so you can understand what they are.
CUT TO:
This is a hard cut or simply a change of scene.
DISSOLVE TO:
This transition is the simultaneous fading out of one scene as the next scene fades in.
FADE IN/FADE OUT
Fade in is the fading into a scene from black. Fade Out is the fading out to a black screen. You can write a Fade In at the start of the script to imply the movie is starting and a Fade Out to imply the end of the movie but even then, it's not necessary in today's writing world.
MATCH CUT TO:
The Match Cut is a transition that uses elements from the previous scene (whether it's visual, audio, or thematic) to seamlessly cut to the next scene, matching the audio, visual or theme in the next scene. A popular example of this is from 2001: A Space Odyssey where a bone thrown in the air match cuts to a rotating satellite in space.
SMASH CUT TO:
The Smash Cut is the cut to a scene that creates a stark contrast between the two scenes. For example, if a character says "I will never do this", then the scene might smash cut to the character doing the very thing they vowed not to do.