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Looking for Video Effects? Check Out These Free Options!

Looking for Video Effects? Check Out These Free Options!
Softonic Editorial Team

Softonic Editorial Team

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Want to give your videos some professional-looking effects but don’t have the same budget as those summer blockbusters?

Fortunately, there are a large number of cool effects that can enhance the quality of your video projects and are free to use. Take a look at a few of the special video effects that can immediately impress and amaze your viewers:

Powerful backgrounds

If you’re trying to evoke a particular emotion, check out the beautiful video backgrounds at www.footagecrate.com. This collection includes waving American and British flags, various speedlines and swirls, and glowing stadium lights. This site also has a number of great categories of free video effects, including blood splatters, textures, buttons, and transitions. There’s also a section of free public domain footage to use that includes clips from movies, NASA, and cartoons. If you need footage of Popeye, Betty Boop, Mutt and Jeff, or clips from Alice in Wonderland, Little Brown Jug, Frankenstein or the Thief of Baghdad, this is the place for you.

Light-ning strikes

At www.cutestockfootage.com, you can download free backgrounds and effects that manipulate different light presentations. Choose from basic and glass light leaks, lens flares, and bokeh treatments. The site also includes a series of ocean wave and beach textures, green-screened blood splatters, sniper scopes, and transitions. There are some specific effects here for free download, including water on a car side mirror, old film countdowns, and thunder and electricity.

Total tools

With 13 categories of special effects, there’s plenty to choose from at www.free-video-footage.com. The backgrounds section includes business, light, and globe options while the 80 menu backgrounds offer something for every type of video. Other categories include virtual sets, mattes, fonts, special effects, transitions, clipart and lower thirds.

Professional courtesy

Mitch Martinez is a professional director of photography who has worked on hundreds of different commercial and corporate video and film projects. He has generously offered hundreds of stock footage effects files for download on his website, www.mitchmartinez.com. Categories on his site include fire, water bubbles, time lapse, aerial shots, animals, beach, and abstract effects.

Making it easy

Explosions, TV static, vintage film scratches, and flying particles are the most popular free video effects at www.videezy.com. It’s easy to download and use these files in 23 categories, including some not seen on many other free video effects sites. The art and culture category, for example, contains footage of Ferris wheels, New York City, Bible pages, and a British Museum. The music category showcases footage of various guitar and piano players, vintage record players, and concerts. There’s even a random objects section in case your creativity calls for apples, clock towers, dirty dishes, or a military shooting mark moving downstream on a river.

Check out Capture Every Moment: Transform VLC Player into a Screen Capture App to get more out of your video creation experience!

Softonic Editorial Team

Softonic Editorial Team

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