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How do fades, dissolves, wipes, and irises show changes of time or place in a film?

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Director Sir David Lean sits atop a ladder beside a film camera, surrounded by crew and equipment on the set of Doctor Zhivago (1965) under a blue sky. — film David Lean (sitting atop a ladder) during the filming of *Doctor Zhivago* (1965).

In film, transitions such as fades, dissolves, wipes, and irises function as a system of punctuation that signals to the audience that the relationship between two scenes involves a significant shift in time or place. While a straight cut typically implies that scenes are close in space or time, these more visible transitions are used to denote more distant relations.1

Fades and Dissolves: To indicate a lapse of years, filmmakers often use a fade—where the screen goes dark before the next image appears—or a dissolve, which superimposes one image over another as the first is replaced. These techniques are also essential for stressing breaks in continuity, such as when a narrative shifts into a flashback, dream sequence, or a departure from chronological time.12
Wipes and Irises: These are distinct optical devices used to transition between scenes. A wipe involves a line moving across the screen to replace the preceding image with the next, while irising gradually reduces the image to a pinpoint before expanding the new one. Like fades and dissolves, these devices serve to mark clear transitions in the film's narrative structure.12