Make Your Own Home-Made Special Effects

Lights. Camera. Action. It's time to make your own, homemade special effects. We are all envious of the professionally-made movies with their stunt guys and big action productions. But, you can make your own special effects when creating your movies.

You'd be surprised at how simple things can improve the production quality of your movie. And, the Internet has made it even easier. You can now add cool special effects by just using a good editing program. It will definitely enhance the look of your videos.

Another way to create great special effects is to slow everything down. Just like you don't want to be pounding someone to get the correct sound, you probably don't want to be knocking somebody out to get a good fight scene. So, tell your actors to slow down, and do all the planned movements deliberately. When you go to edit the film, you can speed up the sequence to make it more authentic.

But, what if you need somebody to disappear? Simple! Place your camcorder on a tripod to make sure that it's steady. Film your actor. Stop the camera, and remove your actor from the shot. Film the same spot again. When you edit the two scenes together, it will look as if your actor has disappeared.

Blood is a necessity in many films, especially if you're planning on creating a horror or action film. The best way to make blood is to mix corn syrup, red/purple food coloring and milk. The milk will make it thicker in consistency. If you want to make the blood look like its coagulating, add some flour to make it even thicker.

If you've ever seen "Vertigo" or "Poltergeist," you know that lengthening a hall or a yard makes for great movie making. And, you can create a similar scene even on no budget. Film your actor running towards you. Then in the editing room, loop this scene over a few times. It will make the area where you're filming look really long.

You can also edit the clips to make it seem as if they're getting closer each time by splicing together the same sections of video. If you don't like the way that the loop looks, edit in other clips, such as some other action scene or people reacting to the actor running at them.

Homemade videos are fun and can be rather inexpensive. If you add these simple homemade special effects suggestions to your repertoire, you'll be making your own eye-catching, independent films.

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Image credit: Steve Jurvetson