How to get the crew and their lights out of your own footage

Last updated 2026-09-15 · 8 min read

What is the short version?

Crew and gear do not all appear at once. You watch the cut, spot a light stand, fix it, watch again and see a colleague in the background of a different shot. Three viewings later you are still finding them.

1. Tell Vizard Agent the timecode and roughly where.
2. Ask it to look for a clean take first.
3. Let it reframe before it repairs anything.

What do you need before you start?

The cut and the rushes it came from. Vizard Agent's best remedy is usually a different take of the same moment, and that is only available if it can see everything that was filmed rather than only what was used.

• The cut. The version you are watching.
• The rushes. Every take, not just the selects.
• What you saw. A lamp, a stand, a person.
• Roughly where. Left edge, top corner, in a window.
• How much crop you accept. It limits reframing.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Report the sighting rather than prescribing the fix. Telling Vizard Agent to remove the light stand jumps straight to the most expensive of the three remedies, when the take sitting next to this one in your rushes may not have the stand anywhere in it.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• "Find them exactly." Your estimate is a starting point.
• "Another take without them." The first remedy to try.
• "Reframing is fine if the framing still works." Permission, with a limit.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the Vizard Agent sequence on a real institutional film where crew and gear kept turning up in shot. The same loop runs three separate times over the course of the job, because each viewing of the cut surfaces something the last one did not.

1. Looks for a replacement shot without the lamp in frame.
2. Locates the lamp precisely in the shot you flagged.
3. Uses a grid over the frame to pin down where it sits.
4. Swaps in the shot without it and tones down a neighbouring shot.
5. Checks the replacement after stabilisation.
6. Trims past a dissolve baked into the replacement's source.
7. Locates the crew and the light stand in the next reported shot.
8. Plans the reframes before applying any of them.
9. Scans the early rushes for a crew-free version of the moment.
10. Replaces one shot and reframes the stand out of another, then re-checks.

Step three is a small trick that saves a lot of back and forth. A grid in ten per cent steps lets you and Vizard Agent talk about the same object without either of you describing it in words.

Step one being first is the actual method. A replacement take costs nothing in picture quality, a reframe costs a little resolution, and a repair costs the most and risks looking repaired — so they are tried in that order rather than the other way round.

Step six is the kind of thing that catches a replacement out. The alternative take may contain a transition already baked into the source, so the swap has to be trimmed past it rather than simply dropped in.

What does the result look like?

Shots without the apparatus in them. Mostly these are different takes rather than repaired frames, so the picture is as filmed, and Vizard Agent tells you which shots were swapped, which were reframed and which — if any — needed painting.

When does this not work well?

Some sightings simply cannot be dodged. If the crew member is standing right beside the subject, or the stand is in every take that was filmed, then reframing takes the subject out of shot along with it, and a repair to the picture is the only remaining option.

• Gear next to the subject. Reframing loses them both.
• Only one take. No clean alternative exists.
• Reflections. A window or a screen shows the whole room.
• A moving camera. The repair has to track.
• Tight framing already. No resolution left for a reframe.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Report the next sighting as its own separate thing. These surface one at a time over several viewings, and Vizard Agent treats each one as an individual fix rather than re-doing the shots it has already cleaned up for you.

• "There is still someone at 18.8 seconds." That frame is checked directly.
• "The replacement shot is worse." Reframing the original is tried instead.
• "The reframe cuts off the subject." A different remedy is used.
• "There is a lamp in the window." A reflection; the repair route is taken.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand you reach for the repair tool because it is the obvious answer, and spend an hour making a clean plate for a shot where the take three seconds later has no lamp in it at all. Finding that take means watching all the rushes again.

Common questions

Why not just paint it out? Because a clean take is free and looks better. Vizard Agent tries that first.

How precise does my report need to be? Roughly is enough. Vizard Agent locates it exactly from there.

What is the grid for? So you and Vizard Agent can name the same spot without describing it.

Will reframing hurt the quality? A little. Vizard Agent tells you how much crop each reframe costs.

What if there is only one take? Then reframing or repair. Vizard Agent will say which is viable.

Can it find them without me looking? Ask it to sweep for crew and gear and Vizard Agent will report what it finds.

What about reflections in windows? Harder. Vizard Agent treats those as a repair rather than a reframe.

Does the replacement match the grade? Vizard Agent grades it to the neighbours and checks the contact sheet.

What if the replacement has a baked-in transition? Vizard Agent trims past it rather than letting it into the cut.

Can it handle several in one pass? Yes. Report them all and Vizard Agent works through them separately.

Will the timing change? No. A swapped shot is matched to the slot it fills.

What about a boom in the top of frame? The same three remedies, in the same order.

Can it check the whole film for me afterwards? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for a sweep before you sign it off.

Why do I keep finding more? Because you look at different parts of the frame each time. A sweep catches the rest.