Film Editing Bench — Cuts, Dissolves & Pacing

Select Shot

Shot duration 2.0s

Transition

Transition length 0.4s

Playback

Playback speed 1.0×

Edit Metrics

ASL

0.0s

Cuts/min

0.0

Runtime

0:00

How it works

Two numbers describe the rhythm of any cut: Average Shot Length (ASL) and cutting rate.

ASL = total runtime / number of shots
cuts = number of shots − 1
cuts per minute = cuts / (runtime in minutes)

A fast-cut trailer might run an ASL under 1.5s; a slow contemplative drama can sit at 8–12s. Trim any shot on the timeline and watch ASL and cuts/min update live — pacing is a direct, computable consequence of how long each shot is left on screen.

Transitions blend the last stretch of the outgoing shot into the first stretch of the incoming one:

Cut — instantaneous swap, zero-length transition window. The default and most common transition; implies visual/temporal continuity.
Dissolve — outgoing and incoming frames cross-fade over the transition window: frame = (1−p)·A + p·B, where p ramps 0→1. Reads as time passing or a soft thematic link.
Wipe — a moving edge sweeps across the frame, replacing A with B on one side as p increases; the split position is exactly p across the frame width. Reads as a harder, more mechanical scene change.

The preview monitor renders whichever shot the playhead is inside, blending across a transition window centered on each cut point — the same mechanic a real non-linear editor (Premiere, Avid, Resolve) uses to render a rough cut in real time.

Playhead Selected shot

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