Completing the Cut - The Craft of the Cut - page 124

When you add a transition, an orange render bar appears in the Timeline and disappears after the effect has
rendered in the background (see Figure 7.21). To apply a cross-dissolve to both ends of a clip, select the entire
clip in the Timeline and choose Edit ⇒ Add Cross Dissolve or press +T. To remove the transition, simply select
it in the Timeline and choose Edit ⇒ Delete or press Delete. When you place a cross-dissolve on clips that con-
tain audio, the cross-fade effect is also applied to the audio. It's possible to apply a cross-dissolve to just the
video or audio components, by first expanding or detaching the clip (see Chapter 8).
When you apply a transition to a Connected clip, Final Cut Pro turns the clip into a Secondary Storyline before
adding the effect. You can easily copy a transition to another edit point on the Timeline by selecting the trans-
ition and dragging it to the new edit point while pressing the Option key. You can use the standard Cut, Copy,
and Paste commands to do the same thing.
Figure 7.21 An orange render bar above a newly added transition.
Chapter 6 introduced you to the concept of clip handles, which are the extra parts of a clip's media that aren't
being used in the Timeline. Clip handles also come into play when applying transitions. This is because trans-
itions require an overlap between the transitioning clips, and this overlap is usually created by using any
handles that the clips may have. If media handles aren't available, Final Cut Pro displays a warning dialog box
giving you the option to use the media utilized in the Timeline to perform the transition (see Figure 7.22). If you
select the dialog box's Create Transition option, Final Cut Pro ripples the transitioning clips in the Timeline to
create an overlap for the transition to take place and shortens the edited sequence by the amount of the trans-
ition. This is obviously not desirable in most cases because it alters the timing of the entire work, so you need to
take care when selecting this option. If media handles are available, Final Cut Pro uses them to perform the
transition and leaves the duration of the edited sequence intact.