Ronnie's description is a very good one.

One thing I would like to add for the sake of "correctness" is that Special FX are practical effects, the effects you get in camera, such as pyrotechnics (explosions and fire on set) miniature shots, double exposures, matte effects.
Explosions added digitally in post would be part of Visual FX, as would any 3D graphics (your robot), particle effects (fog, rain, smoke) and any other imagery created in post.
Transitions and dissolves are called DVE, but they are not considered VFX. So although a corporate videographer or editor may say he needs to add effects to his video meaning transitions for example, in a feature film when you say adding effects one normally mean VFX.

So SFX= practical effects in camera, VFX= added imagery in post (these days normally digitally, but used to be optically).

So the terms are not the same even though they are used interchangeably sometimes.

Having said that, post-production workflow and how many steps it would/should be highly depends on what type of project you are working on; narrative, commercial, music video, corporate, wedding, and also on your budget. Will you have a Sound Editor, a Music Editor, a Final Mixer or will one sound guy do all (Sound Editing, Sound Mix, Music Mix, Music Editing, Final Mix)?
Will you record Foley or use only the sounds you captured on set during the take? If so Foley needs to be done before you can even start thinking about doing sound. Same is true for A.D.R.
Will you need to offline? Then conform has to be added to your workflow too.

Here is a simplified version of the workflow I use:

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Cheers.

LW_for_Feature wrote:

In sound post SFX means sound effects.

jwrl wrote:


Yep. But I was using SFX as an abbreviation of the aforementioned Special FX so I didn't have to write the whole term again. Sorry, I thought this was clear.



P.S. Although both use the same initials, in one the S stands for Special and the other the S stands for Sound. So I don't see how it can be confused in this context.

I wasn't correcting you, I was adding to your explanation. If the OP needed that level of information it was also quite likely that they may be confused if they encounter the term SFX with sound media.

I was just attempting to further clarify things.

Attached if it works is a PDF flow chart of how we did things five years ago. That's the last point in time at which it was possible to figure it out to a reasonable level of detail and document it before it all changed beyond recognition. Leon Silverman's right -- Workflows are like snowflakes now, no two are alike.



-- J.S.

Hi John, thank you for the pdf, that is just so interesting,

Anthony