one of the most exciting elements in the entertainment industry is the magic of special effects anything that moves in an animated film and is not a character is considered a special effect and is left to the special effects animators to create special effects are traditionally divided into two types the first type is optical effects also called visual or photographic effects which rely on manipulation of a photographed image the second type is mechanical effects also called practical or physical effects which are accomplished during liveaction shootingthe art of special effects relies on understanding perception ie how the eye and brain perceive the world and using that knowledge to make something look real when it isnt movies would not be movies today without special effects special effects animators and multimedia artists are the ones that infuse magic into movies they are responsible for the special effects that make movies so different from stage dramas special effects animators create whatever the director and the script call for they can make men fly ships sink or make a monster bigger than a skyscraper special effects animation is taking on a huge role in motion pictures and other media students who wish to make a career in the field of special effects must have a thorough knowledge about compositing compositing includes everything from what you normally think of as special effects where things explode evaporate morph etc it also includes stage extensions making the scene stage larger digitally in post production to environment creation anything from buildings to complete worlds to blue green screen replacement blue screen is an important tool in digital compositing movie stars perform a scene in a studio in front of a blue screen later computer programmes are used to replace the blue background with a real background such as an ocean sceneso even though an actor was filmed in a studio it will look like he was filmed out at sea basically the art of taking live footage and blending it with computer generated footage is what compositing is all about compositing softwares such as adobe after effects and autodesk combustion are widely used todaykalpesh kheradia autodesk certified faculty at maya academy of advanced cinematics believes that a student can take up a career in this field immediately after class xii before taking up a career in special effects knowledge of graphics is very essential whereas knowledge of animation is not a necessity commenting on job prospects in this field kheradia says after completing a course in compositing a person can become a compositor or a special effects technician the pay packet ranges from anywhere between rs 800030000 permonth depending upon how experienced the candidate is he adds be it artists nonartists or students anyone with a combination of visual creative and technological skills sets can easily make an average of rs 25000 a month after a good exposure and training says narender singh senior faculty arena multimedia pooja gandhi center head arena multimedia further