How to get the crew and their lights out of your own footage
Give Vizard Agent the timecode and roughly where in the frame you saw it. It locates the lamp, stand or crew member precisely using a grid over the frame, then works through the remedies in order: another take without it, a reframe that pushes it out of shot, and only then a repair to the picture itself.
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 next to this one in your rushes may not have the stand in it at all. Give it the rushes as well as the cut.
Prompt
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
It tries the remedies in order of cost. A replacement take costs nothing in picture quality, a reframe costs a little resolution, and a repair costs the most and risks looking repaired. On an institutional film, Vizard Agent ran this loop three separate times, as each viewing surfaced something new. In the session behind this article it:
- Looked for a replacement shot without the lamp in frame, and located the lamp precisely using a grid in ten per cent steps over the frame.
- Swapped in the shot without it, toned down a neighbouring shot and checked the replacement after stabilisation.
- Trimmed past a dissolve that was baked into the replacement's source, rather than dropping it straight in.
- Located the crew and the light stand in the next reported shot, and planned the reframes before applying any of them.
- Scanned the early rushes for a crew-free version of the moment, then replaced one shot, reframed the stand out of another and re-checked.
When does this not work well?
Some sightings can't be dodged. If the crew member stands right beside the subject, or the stand is in every take, reframing takes the subject out with it and a repair is the only option left. Reflections in a window or screen show the whole room, a moving camera means the repair has to track, and tight framing leaves no room to reframe.
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.
Why do I keep finding more? Because you look at different parts of the frame each time. Ask Vizard Agent for a sweep to catch the rest.