Like the covers of a book, titles and credits instantly give your movie a professional finish. Most programs have a basic titling tool, allowing you to choose fonts, colours, sizes, position etc. You can usually decide to have it on a plain black/colour background, or over a clip. Some programs let you spin, stretch, roll or fly the titles all over the place. However - restraint is often best (once everyone's tried everything out and had their fill of excess, of course).
If the text tool can't achieve your design - make your titles and credits in a graphics program and import them. Or you could draw/paint them on paper and film them.
Don't forget to credit everyone who worked on the film or there will be tears. And don't spell the names wrong. Get the producer to check the credits before you output the film: that makes it their responsibility.
Closing sequences with faces of each team member or hand created artworks with names on, can be good fun (and can fill production time for those who haven't got other jobs to do on the last day of filming).
Long opening titles can subvert the storyline - and are unnecessary - focus on the story
Effects and transitions are usually dragged onto the selected clip or cut, or sometimes you highlight the clip and choose parameters from a pull down menu or box. Most programs will allow you to change a few things; the more professional, the more elaborate.
Most narratives are told using four changes; cut, dissolve, fade up, fade out. And the king of these is always the cut, used almost exclusively for linking shots within scenes and for most joins between scenes.
Transitions are dissolves, wipes, etc which blend two clips at the join, to suggest significant changes in time, location, mood or scene. Transitions should be used sparingly, and only when there is good reason. Most people want to experiment with the many and various transitions in the menu which is fine, as long as they don't all end up in one film.
There are many visual effects to be found in most editing program menus. These are some:
Another effect you may have is speeding up, slowing down or reversing your clip. It's often not found with the other effects. A speed change is not just for fun, it can help extend a shot that is too short, speed up a leisurely pan and used with skill can even rescue some performances. . It can also be highly effective in bringing attention to something. Watch how it is used in films, Martin Scorsese is a big fan.
This is a bit like a dissolve but you continue having two or more shots mixed with each other for longer than just a transition. It’s often used when you want to show actions happening at the same time in different locations.
This is a bit like superimpose but you have clear framed action rather than mixing the images. Split Screen is two images, like seeing both sides of a telephone conversation. Multi-screen is more than two images. A lot of music videos use this effect.
Contrast, colour balance, old movie effect, etc - change the look of a clip and can be applied to the whole film as a style, or to a sequence that is meant to stand out from the others (eg a flashback in black and white). They are also used to match clips where the colour or contrast is distractingly different.
Try them out and see - you probably won't use many of them - and they should be used only if there's a good reason, but it's good to know what is available.
Cameras have in-built FX menus Do not use them. Create FX in the edit, where they can easily be changed or removed
Unless you’re using a professional editing program, most effects have to be 'rendered' before you can watch them. The bigger the effect, the more time it can take. A welcome moment for a cup of tea (though if you're doing a sci-fi, you may get sick of tea). Rendering is hard work for the computer; it may crash if asked to do too much, so save a version before you render.
Although we recommend using effects with caution, they really can save the day: