Suburban RED
In this image, the actor is surrounded by his room which is mostly built in miniature. The miniature and the actor are photographed with forced perspective in mind. The advantage of working with miniatures is the ease and variety in which one can let the light and shadows be at play. In this scene the light coming in through the window and onto the miniature side of the room (the facing wall and the right wall) are a combination of a desk lamp and a bright LED flashlight. The miniature lights help to achieve a sense of a larger room out of a miniature room.
I think one the basic and essential special visual effects is the combination of one element - live-action footage of the actors, with another element - the footage of the miniature or the model. The animated dinosaur, for example, and the hiding or running live actors combined into one image.