The Difference Between Special FX and Visual FX

Whenever I am explaining what I do to a client, or trying to pitch an idea to someone who knows nothing of the video production field, they always say the same kinds of things:  “Oh, so you’re the one that does those special effects when you’re, like, editing and stuff…?”  or “We can add the special effects, like explosions and ray guns later right?” or one of my favorite, “that lighting doesn’t look right, oh well you can fix that with some visual effects anyways, you seem like you know what you are doing”.  Fact is, special effects and visual effects are two completely different realms of the production process.  I have had to explain this so many times, I usually just nod my head and say yeah, and continue on with my day, because its almost an everyday occurrence.  Perhaps you are new to the video production/post production world, so this could inform you a bit, and help in your quest to not look like an idiot if you were to let something slip.

First off, what is the difference?  Well, simply special effects are created during shooting, and visual effects are done in post.  It goes a lot deeper than that, but that is the basic principle that you can tell people when you don’t want to waste your breath explaining the ins and outs.  A lot of people when they start out, don’t really realize this difference and think that After Effects can fix anything as long as you got the skills or there is a tutorial on it.  This is not true.  Although After Effects and other compositing applications are very powerful and can do some amazing things, there is only so much that you can “fix in post.”

The things that are specific to special effects, or at least one of the most important, is lighting.  Things such as reactive lighting, shadows, and glow are just a few effects that are insanely hard to fix in post.  Lighting you can fake a little bit with brightness and contrast, but that is sometimes as far as you can go.  Things like the flickering light from a campfire and the random glows from things like sparks and electricity are really hard to create in post because of the randomness, and how it falls onto the contours of a subject’s face.  For these types of things, even though we might be creating the fire or whatever in post, we film the lighting with a similar light source onto the person’s face to get that real light falloff effect.  Other special effects would be explosions done on location, motion control rigs that replicate the same camera moves on set and hundreds of other examples.  Basically effect that is created to be shot on film, and not done in post production is part of the special effects team’s job.  A great site to learn more about special effects, and how to build them on the cheap would be Indy Mogul.

Now onto the visual effects.  This area is just as big, if not bigger, and expanding every single day.  Usually, at least on larger productions, there is a Visual Effects Supervisor on duty facilitating the special effects to be shot on set, so that it makes it easier for the post production team to deal with later.  So if you have a good knowledge of special effects practices and a visual effects workflow, you will have a lot easier of a time on set knowing how to set up your shots.  Visual Effects range from adding in explosions, compositing subjects into scenes, matchmoving, adding 3D elements to interact with live action, color correction, and the list goes on and on.  When you work in visual effects, the goal is to make your shot, look like everything was shot on film, and no adjustments later.  To the average viewer, these guys strive to be the unsung hero, because the more real it looks, and the less people recognize and say, “oh, cool VFX” the better job you have done.  I am not going to go into every post production duty in depth, those could have an article each of their own, but I will say if you have a nice taste of each position, it makes your job a little easier, and lets you understand a little bit of what the 3D department or matte painting department is capable of, instead of just throwing them a bunch of shots and saying “do it!”

As long has you can have a basic understanding of the workings both of these very different sides of the production pipeline, you will have less headaches, as well as more knowledge, as you grow along with your endeavors.  Special effects and visual effects go hand in hand with each other, but only when the proper steps are taken on and off set, which means planning, and prepping for shoots as well as executing them properly.  Good luck, and also another great resource for cheap understanding of both of these realms, check out Stu Maschwitz’s book The DV Rebels Guide.  Thanks to Dave School for the thumbnail image.

Topher Welsh

Topher Welsh is a post production artist working mainly in the fields of motion graphics and visual effects. He is a freelancer out of Tacoma, Washington, and also runs www.VisualFXtuts.com, which provides a daily fix of tutorials from any and all applications in the visual effects industry. His personal website is found here: www.Toe-Fur.com.

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