Even if it happens to be raining on the night you want to shoot your rain scene, you might not want to take your camera out into the elements. Hollywood productions use rain machines consisting of a series of pipes with holes drilled in them. You could use a twisted length of garden hose with randomly drilled holes between half an inch and two inches apart and hung above the camera. For the best effect the droplets should be at distances from one another (rather than three rows an inch apart, try three rows a foot apart). You'll notice that simply turning the sprinkler upside down creates "rain" in a far too uniform fashion. For a quick and dirty solution, trying drilling several dozen holes, smaller than 1/8th inch in diameter, in the bottom of a plastic bucket, hold it in front of the camera from a ladder. Don't forget that your background should be wet, as well as your actors. Don't you just hate the old movies that show a major rainstorm, but the moment the actors step inside, their hair is bone dry with not a strand out of place?

Rain as a special effect, of course, can also be added digitally. You can also shoot video or buy stock footage of rain on a black backdrop from a place like Feedback Video, and overlay it as a blended track in your editing software.

One summer at the beach, I found myself fascinated by a ride called "The Haunted Castle". A little tram would take you through an exhibit where spooky things would leap out at you. I was particularly intrigued by the way that from the outside, the castle appeared to be on fire, flames were clearly visible through the windows.

I asked one of the attendants how the special effect was done and she gave me a "behind the scenes" tour. They had a room lit up with orange light while strips of clear plastic, cut into "flame" shapes were tied to the top of a simple window fan, blowing upwards to make them flap and move. A bright orange spotlight was aimed directly at the strips and the combination of the orange color, the bright white reflection, and the motion all conspired together to make it look like real fire. Some of the more sophisticated theatrical productions today use silk lit by amber and blue lights, and also powered by a fan, to get a similar, though somewhat smoother, result.

7 Make it Vanish!

One of the oldest and most popular special effects is also one of the least believable - a character goes into a scene, the videographer presses pause, the character leaves the set, and the videographer starts recording again. In the director's mind, it looks like a character has vanished! To everybody in TV Land, it looks like someone pressed pause and walked off the set. The thing that keeps us from suspending our disbelief on this is that there's a perceptible shift between one frame and the next - however slight, there's a jump. You can, however, cover this up very nicely by using a quick fade instead of a cut. Your character becomes much more believably invisible. In Star Trek not only did special effects creators use a fade instead of a cut when showing the transporter dismantling the atoms of our characters, they also superimposed a shot of glitter, swirling in a glass of liquid to create a flashy, more complex looking special effect.

Keep an eye out for special effects ideas while watching TV and movies. Try and think of creative ways to utilize effects in your own work. Be creative. The coolest effects are the ones that are so subtle that only you, other outrageously cool editors, and the Academy will notice, yet unlike the obvious star wipes or the blind, barndoor or push wipes of the 1970s, the average viewer will get a feel that something cool just happened but didn't know why.

Kyle Cassidy is a visual artist who writes extensively about technology.