lap dissolve

British

noun

films the technique of allowing the end of one scene to overlap the beginning of the next scene by fading out the former while fading in the latter

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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An artist like Miller or Dave Gibbons, who worked on Watchmen with Moore, can storyboard a zoom, a cross-fade, a jump cut or a lap dissolve with a deft immediacy that would beat many directors at their own game.

From Time Magazine Archive

In his spare time he stares at motion pictures, often "stopping them and backing them up" to engage in rapt inspection of every last optical effect and lap dissolve.

From Time Magazine Archive

In moviemakers' jargon, a "lap dissolve" consists of a movie scene slowly fading out while the next scene builds up right on top of it.

From Time Magazine Archive

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023