The visual effects (VFX) industry continues to evolve on an almost daily basis. While new technologies and techniques help to make VFX work easier, the growth of the industry makes teaching and learning digital visual effects (DVE) increasingly challenging. Despite the availability of DVE education today, there is a constant shortage of qualified professionals in the industry. The researchers discuss the current concerns of DVE education, and attempt to incorporate problem-based learning (PBL) into its teaching and learning process. This paper presents a case study and reports the use of two PBL structures; 'the problem-based approach' and 'guided problem-based learning'; to teach DVE to a group of undergraduates in the Film and Animation Department. The students' perception of their level of understanding and learning processes for the two structures is compared and discussed.