How can I transition two videos without moving their position?

I have a short video with music in the background. What is seen in the video has to match the music, so I can´t move the video from it´s position. Since the video needed some editing, there are multiple cuts, some sequences being repeated, others shortened, etc.
Unfortunately I did the mistake to place them exactly next to each other in the beginning instead of using a second line to enable adding transitions later.
However, since a sudden cut between the sequences is pretty obvious and irritating for the eye, I need a short transition between them, and if its just one frame. I am already adapting lighting and position of both tracks to be pretty much similar.
So how can I create a transition between the two, without moving any of them from their position, so the video stays in sync with the music?
I heard about an option to open the video as a clip and extend the frames, but it doesn´t exist in my Shotcut anymore.

You can make a transition via trimming. Drag the right edge of the first clip further right, or drag the left edge of the second clip further left. You do not need to extend only one clip to make this transition. You can start by extending one side by several frames and then adjust the total transition by adjusting either side. The transitions video on our Tutorials page covers this.

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@Sarah_Wingert Maybe some clips won’t allow you to extend them to the left or to the right.

I don’t know what your timeline looks like, but if you can add a track and move your clips from track to track (without changing their actual left-right position), this method below could work for you instead. It involves cutting the ends of the clips, slowing the speed of those clips to make them longer, allowing to add a transition:

Notes:

  • Slowing down those clips for such a short time doesn’t show too much in the end result in my opinion.

  • Do the steps in the same order I did in the video, to avoid rippling (is that a word ?) or overwriting another clip when changing the speed.

  • I cut 12 frames long clips in my example, but you can try to cut more, or less frames if you want. Depends on how long you need the transitions to be. Same for the speed, I chose to slow the clips down to 0.7000, but you can try other settings.

  • My project was at a frame rate of 24fps. If yours is higher, like 60fps for example, you’ll need to cut clips longer than 12 frames.

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It also depends on the transition you want between clips. If you want them to fade to black, you can keep them on the same track

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Hi @Sarah_Wingert - following on from all the advice given so far, I just made this demo tutorial showing how to do it:

https://streamable.com/mc406u

Hey all, thank you very much.
Now I manage to do it.
Turns out I was not able to trim right/left, because there was the other clip right next to it and it would have been overwritten, so Shotcut refused. Moving the clips up to another timeline worked out: Then I could trim, so that the transition is possible. :slight_smile:

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Hi @Sarah_Wingert - glad you managed to sort it out.

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