There are a lot of great ways to produce effective and engaging product demo videos. Most importantly, you want them to stand out from the competition, and nurture product sales interest.

To do that, they need to show detailed features and answer questions that your viewers may have. Among the various production techniques that can make your product demo videos dynamic, certain “special effects” are key.

Special effects can give your product demo videos the production value that assists in showing online viewers what it’s really like to use your product.

Here are ten effects that can enhance your product demo videos:

1. Green Screen

Green screen is a video production technique that you may be familiar with as it’s used in many Hollywood movies. It involves using a green screen in the background of a set, behind people or objects.

Once the video has been filmed, the editing team can fill in the green area with other footage, stock footage or images. For example, many films shoot car scenes on a stage with a green screen background.

Once the film goes into post production, editors will swap the green background with footage of a road and make the care look like it’s being driven in any setting they desire! Green screen is a simple effect that can be used well in your product demos.

You can show the environment in which a product works, or simply create a presentation of the product that is clean and professional.

2. Split Screen

Split screen is a special effect that has been around for ages. This technique divides the screen in half in order to show two different shots.

This technique is often used to build suspense or to create humor, but also to compare and contrast important details or even visual aspects of a product.

Product demos often use this technique in order to compare two different products being used at the same time, and to show how one is superior to the other. Split screen can prove to be an effective tool for engagement, as often viewers will pause or re-play these parts of a video to take in the comparison that sits in front of them.

3. Lens Focus Effects

The difference in areas of clarity versus blur you may see in a piece of footage can be caused by the lens that is used. For example, if a person’s face is in focus in the foreground, the background will often be out of focus, and the portion of the shot that transitions from in-focus to out of focus can vary depending on the camera lens that it used.

Often a shallow depth of field is utilized to create a particularly rich, focused look you might see in documentaries or even reality TV shows. This effect can also be created artificially in the editing phase. This may come in handy to add an artistic focus to key areas of your video or product shots.

4. Speed Changes

Speeding up and slowing down your footage can provide a dramatic or humorous quality to your product video. For example, if you’re product is a rug cleaning solution, then beginning the video with a glass of wine falling onto the rug in slow motion is very effective.

You can also show how it’s extremely difficult to get stains out of rugs before introducing your product with a shot of someone scrubbing the carpet in fast motion.

5. Transition Effects

Transition effects add some visual interest to how the shots in a product demo video change from one to another. For example, if you’re showcasing why your product is superior to other products, you can end the video on a shot of a generic brand product and use a wipe transition to a shot of your product.

A wipe seems to push the previous shot out of the way in transition to the next shot. There are plenty of other types of transition effects that you can make use of as well, from simple fades and dissolves to light flash transitions.

6. Using a motion stabilizer

If you shot something handheld – or you used a steadicam but there’s still some shakiness in the shot – then you can use a motion stabilizer in post production in order to either eliminate or minimize the shakiness to make the shot appear much smoother. This will help make your product demo videos look more professional.

7. Using filters

Filters can be used during shooting as well as in post production. Different filters have different effects. They can change the color tinting of a shot and add some extra color as well. For example, a blue filter will change everything to various shades of blue.

Anti-depression commercials will often use a blue filter to make their character look sad before introducing their product. Filters help boost visual contrast and can help you emphasize certain moods that you’re trying to create in your product demo videos.

8. Using Hotspots

Hotspots are becoming increasingly more popular for a good reason – they allow viewers to interact with the video, thereby increasing engagement.

For example, you could embed a link to the product page of the product you’re demonstrating at the end of your video or a link to another video. You can even use hotspots to allow viewers to replay parts of the video or to skip sections as well.

9. Annotations

Annotations are simple ways to provide viewers with more information that supplements your video content. Annotations include pop-up speech bubbles or labels that you can add throughout your product demo videos.

One way you could use these is by adding labels at the end with various blurbs taken from positive reviews of your product. The use of annotations will help enrich the viewer experience and add more interesting visuals.

10. Motion Graphics

The addition of motion graphics can provide numerous benefits to your videos. Motion graphics are a great way to highlight important bits of information being conveyed in the video as well as break up the monotony of the video itself – especially if it’s just of a person talking to the camera.

Motion graphics can be something as simple as numbers or other details popping up on screen or as complicated as a comic book thought bubble appearing over a character’s head in which a small animation plays. Motion graphics help to make your videos more dynamic and entertaining, while also improving the overall look.

These ten effects can greatly improve your product demo videos. Make sure to work with a professional video production company that can not only implement these special effects with eas

e, but can also recommend other special effects as well. They will determine the proper special effects to use as well as where and when to use them.