How To Create Imaginative Visuals On Film

By: Evelyn De Matias

Break Studios Contributing Writer

Seeing super heroes and villains in movies like fantasy coming to life often makes people wonder how to create imaginative visuals on film. Since the inception of the movie industry, experts have continuously developed materials, software and techniques to help make movies come out larger than life. Special visual and sound effects have allowed an industry that used to be black and white explode into a myriad of colors and actions which only used to be a farfetched idea. Here are ways to help you create imaginative visuals on film realistically.

  1. Choose the right editing software specializing on visual effects. Big time movie outfits invest millions of dollars updating their technology with only the best hardware and software to produce all the right imaginative visuals. Software like Adobe Creative Suite, Apple Final Cut Studio 3 and GenArts are popularly used among special effects editors along with plug-ins such as After Effects, Shake, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Bella Professional Series Keyboard and Fusion to name a few. Editing solutions are likewise in demand – products like Avid, Grass Valley, Cineform, Sony Media, On2 and Media 100.
  2. Conceptualize the kind of effects you want to visualize in your film. At this point, know that creativity is the catalyst to a good film. Imaginative visuals are magnified through the help of various visual effects software but the concepts always begin with the people putting the film together.
  3. Take tutorials. There are a vast number of tutorials available at local stores and online sources. Video Copilot has hundreds of tutorials for just about any effect editors can imagine. Imaginative visuals could range from the mundane, such as making stuff disappear, to the highly technical effects like Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) as seen in films like "Titanic" and "Troy." This will help provide you the guided steps to learn how to wield software which creates imaginative visuals on film.
  4. Practice hands on. Use simple clips or a series of photographs to practice transition and editing. Apply whatever you learn from the tutorials and tinker with the software that you have because you just might find special features to give the desired effects you want. Apply effects such as Green Smokes, 3D Ledge, Lighting Strike, Submerged, Practical Explosion, Fracture Design and Disintegration. Tutorials for these effects are available with Video Copilot. Hands on experience are always best to achieve effective and imaginative visuals in films.
  5. Use special filming techniques for imaginative visuals. Simple and time-tested procedures are always effective especially when creating animation or action. For instance, when filming fast action scenes, have the actors perform the choreography slowly and speed the film up in editing. This technique will create an action scene that is seamless and fascinating.
Posted on: Jul. 21, 2010