Fx Guru - Big Budget Hollywood Special Effects in your Classroom!

*Originally posted on my previous blog www.mrbowkerinmalaysia.com in December 2021*

Fx Guru is a free to download app that claims to offer to add 'the fun and excitement of big budget Hollywood horror, sci-fi, and action move special effects to any video'. Well that's just too good of an opportunity to turn down, so I've been having a play with it.

Okay, so you might be saying this is nothing new, FX Guru has been around for nearly a decade. Well that may be true, but I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago, and neither had my teaching colleagues, so I wanted to quickly share this great app to anyone who hasn't heard of it or used it before.

The app does exactly what it says. It is as simple as downloading it and choosing which special effect to add - from alien invasions, explosions, skeleton armies to reindeer running around the classroom. There is a limited selection of free effects, but for just $0.99 you can add the special effect of your choice, and there is plenty to choose from.

The interface is simple, and to add an effect is as simple as choosing your effect, shooting a short video on your camera phone and the app does the rest.

So far I've used this in the classroom as an exciting end to a time travel unit to Ancient Rome, where we 'accidentally' brought back a roman army...

...and as a hook to a fantasy story writing unit using the excellent 'Alien Landing' from Pie Corbett's Talk for Writing as a framework to support the process.

The class have absolutely loved seeing places they know with the added special effects. I teach Year 4, so some of them are shocked and not sure if it's real, others are amazed at my 'mad video editing skills'. Either way the engagement for the short clips is through the roof and it adds a real bit of fun and excitement to learning with very little effort.

I've only just started using it, but I can already tell it is going into my teaching toolkit ready to be pulled out at any opportunity.

If you haven't tried it yet, then I really would recommend it, whether you love tech, or are a bit new to it, this app makes it as simple as possible.

Thanks for reading.

Laurence