Thanks for your comment. I was surprised how the depth of field turned out as well. I'm not sure how I achieved in this video but using Aperture priority mode and setting it as low as possible and zooming in just a bit seems to work really well on my Canon HV20.

As for the Magic Bullet effect, I think it really depends on the context of the movie. In this case there really isn't much context but the "cuteness" of the cat is enhanced by saturating the colors a bit more and the green/blue in the background works well with the orange cat.

I haven't really thought about it much but rendering Magic Bullet effects indeed seems to take longer than most other effects. I've heard about a product called Film Magic Pro ( videocopilot.net/fmp.html ) which seems to emulate those looks using standard After Effects filters. (the package is basically a set of presets) This should cut down on the rendering time. I will try to do some tests (comparing both products) when I find the time.