Special Effects vs. Visual Effects

Lot's of times I see people using the wordt special effects and visual effects as if they are one and the same thing. And perhaps in the eyes of those people they are the same thing, but there's a big difference between them. Knowing the difference between special effects and visual effects is not just usefull information, but mandatory for each director or filmmaker. Because how can you use them if you don't even know what it is?

So what's the difference between special effects and visual effects. Well, the difference is acutally quite easy. Special effects are all the effects that get created in front of the camera, while shooting principal photography. Visual effects are any alterarions that get made after shooting, in post-production, to change your shot.
An easy example is a body shot of a bullet from a gun. This could be done with special effects as well as with visual effects. With special effects this would mean using what is called a squib, a small pack of blood that someone is wearing under his clothes with a small explosive that blows open the blood pack and a part of the clothes a person is wearing to sugest the idea that someone is getting shot by a bullet.
The visual effect would mean that we shoot someone acting like he's getting hit by a bullet, but nothing's happening. Later in post-production, we add the explosion with some blood flying out in the computer to the shot, to make it look like the person was actually getting hit by the bullet.

A dinosaur made with special effects

A dinosaur made with visual effects

If you understand that a special effect is a physical effect that happens in camera, and a visual effect is an effect that gets added to a shot after shooting it, than you understand that they're two completely different things. You can also understand that in one shot you can have both a special effect ánd a visual effect, depending on the needs of course. For instance, you could shoot a special effect, of someone being hit with a bullet, by using a squib. And than later in post-production add a digital bullet to add more realism.
If you understand the difference between this, than you also can begin to wonder why people mix them up sometimes. But the answer to that is quite simple. They have no idea what they're talking about.

Yoda is a good example of a visual effect that could've been a special effect as seen above

So remember the difference when you want a special effect of a visual effect, because not knowing the difference could be deadly for any filmmaker. If you don't know the difference, you might be talking to your visual effects supervisor about a special effect and visa versa. So remember the difference, and also remember, a special effect is always better than a visual effect. Simply because trying to make someting look like it was there, while it wasn't really there, is a lot more difficult than having it actually there on the set and in the shot. So my advice would be, shoot as much as possible special effects and real things, and try to avoid visual effects as much as possible. A visual effect is basically nothing more than a panic button you can hit, when all other options are out, than you revert yourself to visual effects. I've already seen too many movies been made with visual effects, when they could've used special effects instead.