SFX or VFX - what's the difference and which to use for your film | TOP 6 TIPS

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Steve Ramsden here with DIY Moviemaking and today we are looking at the difference between Special and Visual Effects and I share my top 6 tips on how to decide which to use in your own films!

A lot of people seem to think Special and Visual Effects are the same thing or get them mixed up, especially as they are both of course technically ‘visual’ and they’re seen all the time in films and TV.

Special Effects (which are sometimes called SFX or practical effects) usually refers to on-set techniques that were done in real time, in camera on the day – and this would be things like pyrotechnics, rain machines, animatronics or puppets, miniatures, or perhaps stage blood and prosthetic makeup.

Visual Effects (which gets referred to as VFX or sometimes Video Effects) normally refer to things that weren’t there on the day but are digitally added later –now this might be things that were filmed separately such as weather or action elements, or shots done with green screen where you are removing a background and adding another one which is often called a ‘plate’, or maybe it’s full computer generated imagery or CGI which will get added in to a finished shot.

On big film and TV productions that use a lot of effects, there will be a discussion during pre-production about which approach to use for each shot, and many films use a combination of both.

But most importantly, both SFX and VFX are methods of enabling you to enhance the narrative of your story. I regularly do experiments with both practical and digital effects as you might have seen on my YouTube channel, and I’m always trying to get great results with very little budget.
But when I try these effects, even as individual experiments, I’m always trying to root them in storytelling - they are still little sequences with a beginning, a middle and an end – there’s usually a setup and a pay-off. So if people ask me what kind of effects they should use in their short films, I usually start by saying it will be a better film if the effects support the story and not the other way round.

And using both these kinds of effects in your films can really up your production value if they are done well. But if done badly they can look incredibly distracting. But let’s say you do want to use some effects to add to your story - well how do you choose the right type of effect for your script, and how do you execute it properly? Well, check out the video for my top 6 tips to choose between SFX and VFX.