Retiming or other transition suggestions for unconventional student documentary

I'm making a short doc for my thesis project featuring mini-stories along a train line, tied together with footage from the train. I want it to have a sort of whimsical quality, giving the impression that the filmmaker is driving the train and dictating the stops. This sort of look is a lot different from the straightforward docs I have seen, and I am having trouble figuring out how to achieve my vision--especially the transitions from the train to the stories along the tracks and back. I should also mention that I am not super experienced in FCPX (or other editing programs).

I want to make it really clear that the stories featured are at places a rider can see from the train, and I have not figured out yet how to do that very elegantly. So far I have been working with re-timing the train footage so that it gradually slows down, and then doing a Ken Burns zoom effect on a freeze frame of the story location, then cutting to a shot of the inside of the location (with audio preceding it). Of course zooming in so drastically leads to huge loss of quality, especially because of the slow shutter speed. And even using frame blending, it looks a little jerky. (I am shooting 1/50 on a Canon Mark III for 24 fps. Have thought about borrowing a Gopro to get a very high frame rate, but would rather not re-shoot that footage, especially bc all the trees have turned orange!)

Any suggestions, either conceptual transition ideas to think about or specific tools within FCPX or plugins, would be most welcome! Really drastic effects are okay with me--the more clear it is that it's not "reality" the more sure I am that l I'm not abusing documentary ethics.

Cut your entire project with just straight cuts, no transitions. If you can't tell your story that way, you have a weak story.

AFTER you have successfully done that, then explore transitions that will "give the audience additional, relevant information about the story."

I wouldn't worry about a zoom loosing quality (especially in a transition) more than I'd worry about if a fancy transition is going to distract from the story or not. Find something that fits the story, and is SUBTLE.

Focus on the story, the accouterments will follow.

Now, moving forward, can you post a small clip going from one shot to the next, with a simple straight cut, so we can actually see the content, in context?

Also, a lot of documentaries are narration driven, appropriate narration could explain the transition to the audience even if it isn't explicitly shown.

Hope this helps,
-Mark

ever heard of
Лев Владимирович Кулешов ?

he was the first, discribing an effect, no art form before had....
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect
(very few wikis list that... )

Your question touches the very fundamental principle, THE principle of edit. Clip#1 has an effect how we recognize clip#2.

You're fear is, your audience doesn't connect clip_story to clip_train. There're unlimited options doing so, it starts with a Title ("Trainsitions" ... note me in your credits), which creates the expectation "ahh, stories along a railroad.."), cards ("Meanwhile…"), narrator/VoG ("… but now to something completely diffrent"), same faces, same props ..... and in the end, technical eye-candy, mega-zooms, long takes, morphs, whatever .....

I'm with Ben 1st sentence.

And wear your audience shoes for a second:
Do you really want to be pushed to the next scene "hey, idiot, this is connected to the train, you gottit, braindead a***??" .... a serious doc is no homeshopping video ...