Visual effects can be a powerful tool – when used carefully. With the right approach, you can make use of visual effects to make your marketing videos stand out so that they draw more attention and keep viewers engaged.
However the trick to doing that is to use the right visual effects at the right time – and that starts by knowing some of the more useful visual effects for marketing videos:
– Video filters
Essential filters will process your video and enhance its colours by stylizing it in some way. Different filters can produce vastly different types of looks when you apply them to your marketing videos.
Generally, filters are a popular way to make marketing videos look more polished. That being said you should take care to check how a filter affects your entire video before deciding whether to use it.
By using the same filter across all your marketing videos you can create a consistent look that viewers will start to associate with your brand.
– Split screen
As its name implies, a split screen effect involves dividing the screen into two parts with different videos playing on either side. In marketing videos, this effect is often used as a way to display the similarities or differences between products.
Although learning how to make great split screen videos may sound complicated, most editors are able to produce this effect. For example, in Movavi Video Editor it will only take a few clicks to apply. If you want to create a simple split-screen video for free on Mac, you can try iMovie as well.
It is worth noting that the split screen effect can create other visual illusions such as ‘cloning’ the subject by playing two videos with the same subject and an identical background.
– Chroma key
The ‘Chroma key’ effect is more widely known as the ‘green screen’ effect and involves recording videos against a solid-coloured background that will be replaced later with a different video. It can be useful in marketing videos because it will give you full control over the background.
Sometimes this effect is used in product videos to record the product separately and then place it onto a different background later. In other cases, it is used for webinars to use the entire video background as a projection screen of sorts.
– Slow motion
Slowing down videos can help make any actions that are being performed more visible, and some marketing videos may benefit from that. For example in a how-to guide or product demonstration, it could be used to more clearly display actions that would otherwise be difficult for viewers to notice.
It should be noted that shooting slow motion videos has specific requirements – and if your video frame rate is too low in particular its quality will suffer.
Before you use any of the effects listed above in your marketing videos, think about what it is you’re trying to use them for. As a rule, you should only ever use effects in marketing videos with a goal in mind – so start by defining that goal and then figuring out how to use the effect to best achieve it.
