Basically me and my friends with spring break upon us have decided to throw together a little film to call our own. It’s not the first one we’ve done but as we move along we like to raise the bar for ourselves.
Hence my question. We have most of what we need, script, volunteers, camera (a normal digital one, but we’re going for artsy, not professional 
) and places to work. However like I mentioned, we like to raise the bar.
Our current project calls for some subtle video effects. Now we’ve done some before but we are limited by our software.
For most work I’ve done I’ve basically stuck to Windows Movie Maker, for ease of use. It’s limited but effective for our needs. We didn’t really need anything more than a sepia tone before. What we’d like to have is some overlaid flames and maybe some artifically colored eyes. Nothing to advanced.
Currently I’ve got Pinnacle 8 and the ole Windows MM. But Pinnacle doesn’t seem to have anything but transitions and neither allows to to play with individual frames how I want too.
So I’m looking for a cost effective way to expand my horizons. Since this is just for the heck of it and probably won’t be shown anywhere I’m not a fan of pooling money into it.
Plus if you’ve got any suggestions at all I’d be happy to read them.