"distraction rather than enhancement" is a great way of putting it. From what I've seen of most (not all) live action vids, when we're doing effects in live action vidding, generally (not always) the sorts of things 90%+ of us are doing are:
1. slowing things down or speeding them up to fit the music (this may involve reversing the clip, too) 2. cross-dissolving to make a smooth transition between clips 3. zooming, panning, or otherwise moving the view to better focus on something happening. 4. chopping up a clip to make it appear, um, stuttery (sorry, don't have words here)
Good vidders who know their software way better than me also do things like:
Cutting out a frame from clip A and inserting clip B into it, or overlaying clip B onto clip A in some way. Examples: The Test by heresluck, which overlays Star Trek TOS onto footage from the Reboot movie to show us stuff about the Kirk/Spock relationship, and I'm your man by charmax which does it with mirrors.
Sometimes people cut the screen into sections and show different things in each section, sort of like the opening credits sequence to every 70s TV show ever ;) I'm not thinking any really good examples though. Oh! Yes! Vogue by luminosity has a lot of this, though there's a lot of other stuff going on there too.
Something else I've seen is people using effects to texturise (for want of a better word) footage, to make it look old or something. You quite often see sepia tones, old film effects, and similar. Examples: Closer by T. Jonesy and Killa, go back to sleep, by TikiTyler9 (also does other stuff with colour and black and white), I am/Lamb by lim.
lim has a number of vids that have a sketchy, hand-drawn sort of a texture; "Us" is the best known of them, but "This is how it works" also does this. Some of her vids have a different, scrapbooky sort of effect, see eg. "Wallpaper" and "People are People".
(Wow, I wish some of these vidders would write (or point me at) tutorials on how to do this stuff in Final Cut.)
The thing about all these is that, IMHO, they're usually done to tell a story or evoke a mood, not just to make it shinier. I could link a handful of fanvids that *do* use effects to make it shinier, but generally I think it misfires, and I don't think the vids are better for it, so I won't link as it would constitute a negative review, you know? Oh oh oh! No wait, here's an exception: Moulin Renown by drbillbongo. It's obviously a crackvid, though, so that kind of helps it work. (Many people might mention is Another Sunday by jescaflowne but she's coming from an AMV background so I'm not counting it.)
no subject
1. slowing things down or speeding them up to fit the music (this may involve reversing the clip, too)
2. cross-dissolving to make a smooth transition between clips
3. zooming, panning, or otherwise moving the view to better focus on something happening.
4. chopping up a clip to make it appear, um, stuttery (sorry, don't have words here)
Good vidders who know their software way better than me also do things like:
Cutting out a frame from clip A and inserting clip B into it, or overlaying clip B onto clip A in some way. Examples: The Test by
Sometimes people cut the screen into sections and show different things in each section, sort of like the opening credits sequence to every 70s TV show ever ;) I'm not thinking any really good examples though. Oh! Yes! Vogue by
Something else I've seen is people using effects to texturise (for want of a better word) footage, to make it look old or something. You quite often see sepia tones, old film effects, and similar. Examples: Closer by T. Jonesy and Killa, go back to sleep, by TikiTyler9 (also does other stuff with colour and black and white), I am/Lamb by
lim has a number of vids that have a sketchy, hand-drawn sort of a texture; "Us" is the best known of them, but "This is how it works" also does this. Some of her vids have a different, scrapbooky sort of effect, see eg. "Wallpaper" and "People are People".
(Wow, I wish some of these vidders would write (or point me at) tutorials on how to do this stuff in Final Cut.)
The thing about all these is that, IMHO, they're usually done to tell a story or evoke a mood, not just to make it shinier. I could link a handful of fanvids that *do* use effects to make it shinier, but generally I think it misfires, and I don't think the vids are better for it, so I won't link as it would constitute a negative review, you know? Oh oh oh! No wait, here's an exception: Moulin Renown by