Hard cut
An instant switch from one shot to the next with no dissolve or blended frames. The default edit, and usually the right one.
See it
What it is
A hard cut is the edit with nothing on it: last frame of shot A, first frame of shot B, no blended frames in between. It is what a razor tool gives you by default, and it is what the overwhelming majority of every film and video you have ever watched is made of. The eye accepts it because real perception works the same way: you look here, then there.
Reach for it as the baseline and make transitions earn their place. A hard cut says 'and then'; a dissolve says 'time passed'; a wipe says 'we are being playful'. Where a hard cut lands matters more than whether you dress it up: cut on a movement, on an audio beat, on the frame someone finishes a word, and it disappears.
Gotcha: beginners reach for transition presets because a hard cut feels 'unfinished'. It isn't. What actually makes a cut feel jarring is usually the shot pair, not the missing dissolve: too-similar framing (that's a jump cut), a jarring brightness jump, or crossing the line so screen direction flips. Fix the shots, keep the cut hard.
Ask AI for it
Cut this sequence using hard cuts only: no dissolves, wipes, or transition effects anywhere on the timeline. Place each cut on a movement or on the audio beat, vary shot size between adjacent shots so nothing reads as a jump cut, and keep exposure and white balance matched across each cut point.