How to harvest shots from another cut of the same shoot when the rushes are gone

Last updated 2026-09-15 · 8 min read

What is the short version?

When a project is a couple of years old, the rushes are usually the first thing to disappear. What survives is whatever was actually delivered — and a seventy-three second cut of the same shoot contains three or four shots that the thirty second version never used.

1. Give Vizard Agent every delivered version you still have.
2. Ask it to align them and compare the framing.
3. Ask it to check the borrowed shot for that cut's graphics.

What do you need before you start?

Every version you can find, and the one you are fixing. Vizard Agent gets more from a longer cut than a shorter one, and versions from different stages are worth sending even if you think they were superseded.

• The cut you are fixing. The current master.
• Every other version. Longer ones especially.
• What you need. An angle, a reaction, a clean frame.
• Which moment. So it can align on something.
• What may not change. Length, audio, order.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Tell Vizard Agent up front that the rushes are gone. Otherwise the obvious plan is to go back to the original source footage, and several minutes of the session are spent discovering that the source is unreachable before the real work can begin.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• "I do not have the original footage." Saves a search.
• "Line the two up." The alignment is the enabling step.
• "Its own graphics over any of it." The catch to check for.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the Vizard Agent sequence on a real film that had to be repaired from its own delivered versions. The alignment step is what makes everything after it possible: without it, the two cuts are simply two unrelated files that happen to share a subject.

1. Downloads the other delivered cuts to harvest alternate angles.
2. Builds contact sheets of the longer versions.
3. Reviews the longer cut for angles the short one does not have.
4. Pulls candidate replacement shots from it.
5. Assembles the candidates into one grid for review.
6. Measures the timing offset between the two cuts.
7. Refines that offset to millisecond accuracy.
8. Compares the framing of the two cuts at the same moment.
9. Measures when the other cut's graphic clears and where it changes shot.
10. Verifies the area it needs is clean across both versions.

Step seven sounds excessive and is not. The two cuts were exported at different times with different handles, so a second's error puts you on the wrong side of a blink — and at millisecond accuracy the same moment can be found in both files reliably.

Step nine is the catch that spoils otherwise perfect borrowings. The longer cut has its own lower thirds and titles, and a shot that looks clean in the thumbnail can have the last frames of a graphic fading off the top of it.

Step eight matters because the same moment is not the same shot. The longer cut may hold a wider framing of the identical second, which is either exactly what you needed or unusable next to its neighbours.

What does the result look like?

Shots you had written off as lost. They came out of a file you already had on disk, they match the rest because they are from the same shoot on the same day, and Vizard Agent tells you which version each one came from and exactly where in it.

When does this not work well?

You can only harvest what somebody delivered. If every version used the same selection of shots then there is nothing new in any of them for Vizard Agent to find, and a heavily graded or cropped delivery may not cut convincingly against your current master anyway.

• All versions used the same shots. Nothing new to find.
• Different grades. The borrowed shot will not match.
• Different aspect ratios. Cropped delivery loses the sides.
• Graphics over everything. No clean frames anywhere.
• Low-quality exports. The lift is visibly softer.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Say what is wrong with the borrowed shot specifically. Vizard Agent knows which version each lift came from and where in it, so it can go and look for that same moment in a different version rather than abandoning the whole approach and changing your edit instead.

• "It does not match the grade." It is graded to its neighbours.
• "There is a title on it." A window after the graphic clears is used.
• "It is softer than the rest." A higher-quality version is checked.
• "Wrong framing." The same moment is compared across versions.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand you scrub two exports side by side trying to find the same second in both, which is slow and error-prone because the cuts are at different points. Most people conclude the shot is unavailable and change the edit instead.

Common questions

How many versions should I send? All of them. Vizard Agent gets more from a longer cut than a short one.

What if they are different lengths? That is the point. Vizard Agent aligns them by content, not by duration.

Will the borrowed shot match? Usually, since it is the same shoot. Vizard Agent grades it to its neighbours.

What about graphics in the other cut? Vizard Agent measures when they clear and uses the window after that.

Can it find angles I forgot existed? Yes. The contact sheets show everything each version contains.

What if the versions are different ratios? Then the sides are gone. Vizard Agent will say what is recoverable.

Does the audio come across? It can, though usually you keep your own and take picture only.

What if the quality is lower? Vizard Agent compares and tells you whether the lift will show.

Can it work from a social upload? Sometimes. Re-encoded copies are softer but often still usable.

Will my current edit change? Only where a shot is replaced. Vizard Agent keeps the length and audio.

How does it line them up? By matching content across the two files, then refining to the millisecond.

What if I find another version later? Send it. Vizard Agent adds it to the pool and looks again.

Is this the same as recovering the edit? No. That rebuilds your cut; this borrows shots your cut never had.

Can it tell me where each shot came from? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for the version and timecode of every lift.