Joe,

I tried first inserting black jpegs but MEP (actually using VPX) seemed to get confused between transition lengths and durations of stills. What will work as you describe is this:

First create a short video clip of just black. I dragged out a jpeg and then set the range for export to five seconds. Or you could simply make a selection from any black video. Using five to give two seconds of fade each end and one second of black.

Next assemble your film with alternating interview clips and black segments, making sure they all at least touch or maybe even some overlap. Using [Ctrl+drag] is a quick way to make duplicates of objects.

Then, on one join, drag an interview clip leftwards across its neighboring black section the required amount. I zoomed in to one second resolution so it was easy to set the overlap exactly two seconds. Check that you have not opened any gaps further along or the next section won't work properly.

Finally click to select the piece on the right of your precise overlap and right click on the little [A|B] icon. From the menu pick 'Apply to all objects on the track'.

Hope my English directions are OK; Ich schreibe kein besser Deutsche!

Carl