Quick answer: Unity Cinemachine cameras not blending because priority changes don't trigger transition? CM caches the active camera per-frame - set priority and call Notify to force re-evaluate.

Increased a camera's priority during a cutscene. CM keeps the previous camera live until the next scene-camera lookup.

Force notification

brain.ManualUpdate();

Cinemachine Brain re-evaluates active camera. Trigger after priority changes that need to take effect this frame.

Use SetActive instead

For one-shot cuts, toggle camera enabled rather than priority. CM treats the disabled-to-enabled transition as immediate.

Avoid priority changes mid-tick

Schedule priority changes for the next frame. CM's per-frame caching favors stable priorities.

“Cinemachine optimizes for stable priority. Mutating it mid-frame fights the optimization.”

For cutscene cameras, use the Cinemachine Timeline track. The clip-driven approach has cleaner blend semantics than priority manipulation.