hi. i'm no expert on movie special effects, but i am a graphics artist (3d animation) and the advice i can give you is this. for strength scenes you can get away with some good editing, unless you want a full on shot. for flight scenes you're going to need some compositing software - adobe after effects 6.5 (which is what i use) or discreet's combustion 4. shoot the person flying against a blue background and the background footage seperate (make sure they match up as closely as possible in terms of camera movement - ideally you would have motion-controlled cameras, but i'm assuming you don't have access to those). import the footage into a compositor as seperate layers, with the flying footage on the top most layer. get the compositor to make color blue transparant (this way you will see the background footage). then render. *note*: if the person flying is wearing blue, then you have to use a different color (otherwise you will see the background footage through their clothes). pick a colour that doesn't appear in the scene - movie fx guys use bright blue ("blue screen") or bright green ("green screen") as these are two colours that people rarely wear, but in theory any colour can be used.
it sounds simple, and it is. it just takes time.
sorry for the long post, hope this helps.
good luck with your uni project (i'm a uni student too).
have a merry xmas too!
kikass
p.s. for the flight scenes, you can get away with not using a compositor by filming the person lying on a rig in the foreground of the shot. personally i would use a compositor - it takes longer and looks better (plus you can have more freedom in the kinds of shots you can do).
