Practical SFX Or CGI: Which To Choose For TV Production

If you’re planning to add any visual effects into your TV production, you will need to begin by making one very important call: are you going to create those effects in real life (practical effects) or are you going to introduce them in post-production using CGI?

We want to start by saying that neither option is inherently “better” or “worse” than the other. They are simply different techniques available to create visual effects (VFX) when shooting video content. 

What we’re going to cover here are the pros and cons of each so that you can make an informed decision about which to use for your project. If you really aren’t sure, it’s best to speak to your TV prodduction agency to get their professional opinion. 

Practical effects: pros and cons

Practical effects, also referred to as special effects (SFX), happen in real time on the film set. While your first thought might be for dramatic events like explosions, SFX can also include prosthetics and makeup, as well as puppets.

Pros of practical effects

The main pros of using SFX are that your actors can directly interact with the effect, whether that’s a character being performed by a puppet or a real-time reaction to an explosion. 

Using SFX can also help with continuity, although an experienced post-production team is what makes the biggest difference in this respect. 

When it comes to makeup and prosthetics, these are often chosen because they perform much better when a character is shot close up. 

Cons of practical effects

The main disadvantage of choosing practical effects is that you have to physically create them on your set. We have all heard the stories of how long some stars spend in makeup to become a character – this means you need to factor this prep time into your shooting schedule.

Another challenge is that large-scale effects, such as explosions, can be dangerous and require a lot of specialists to ensure that filming proceeds safely. This can add to your budget, so factor all of this in when making your comparison. 

Practical effects can also be unpredictable – you can’t guarantee how a flame will flicker or which way the smoke might drift, for instance. If you know you want a very specific effect, you may want to consider CGI because of the level of control it provides. 

CGI: pros and cons

CGI has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and when it’s done well, it is hard to distinguish it from the real world. Modern editing techniques allow CGI to be seamlessly integrated into filmed footage.

Pros of CGI

The main advantage of CGI is that it can be used to create anything you can imagine. It is not constrained to what we have in the real world, which is why it’s so popular for sci-fi productions. 

Depending on your budget, CGI can also be more cost effective than taking a whole set to different locations for filming. While there will be costs involved to get the best CGI possible for your production, you need to weigh those against physical filming costs when making a decision.

As we’ve already mentioned, with CGI you have full control over the final appearance of whatever it is you are creating, whether that is a dramatic event like a fireball or a tornado, or a particular character who looks out of the ordinary. 

CGI is also considered safer as it can be used to simulate a disaster, like a flood or fire, without putting anyone in that situation in real life. 

Cons of CGI

For actors, knowing that significant elements will be introduced in post-production can be more challenging, as they aren’t able to react to what the viewers will see. 

Of course, CGI when done poorly can really show and that can have a negative impact on how people perceive your production. This is why it’s so important to take the time to find a VFX studio with extensive experience not only in CGI, but in the kind of CGI you want to create.

Can you combine CGI with practical effects?

You can combine CGI with SFX to get the best of both worlds in your TV production. This allows you to tap into the realism and authenticity SFX can provide, without having to reign in your imagination or scale back the complex visual elements you’d like to include. 

As one research paper noted, “both approaches will remain essential for the art of filmmaking”. 

And that’s the point we’d like to leave you with – filmmaking is an art. Which technique you use will depend on what you’re trying to achieve with your production and choosing SFX over CGI or vice-versa is no less legitimate than choosing to use water colours rather than oil paints. 

They are simply different techniques and approaches that each have legitimacy in the filmmaking process.