Harmy said:
Well, that's the whole idea of adding the smoke. The GOUT shot is so grainy and dirty, that there's no way of removing the grain without turning it into a blurry blob, so I added the smoke to conceal it. It works much better when put into the film with sound and the subtitle, than it does on it's own.
Harmy, seriously, have you considered a "morph" transition effect instead of a fade between the two shots?
It may make it less noticable.