How to turn every cut in a short film into a match cut on the same shape
Give Vizard Agent the rule for the motif: where it sits, how big it is, and how it may turn. It measures the shape at the end of every outgoing shot and the start of every incoming one, builds scale, position and rotation moves so they land on the same circle, and dissolves only inside the shape where the two looks differ.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
State the match in numbers. "Make the transitions flow" gets you softer dissolves, while "the circle is centred and one third of the frame wide at every cut" is a target each join can be measured against, and it makes clear the footage itself stays as it is.
Re-edit only the transitions, without regenerating any footage. At every cut the circle must be at the exact centre with the same diameter. If the two circles look the same, hard cut; if not, a short dissolve inside the circle. Spins keep their direction and speed across the cut.
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
It turns the motif into measurements at every boundary. Each shot's circle is found, its outer edge pinned, and the shot is moved and scaled over its last and first frames so the shapes meet exactly, which is what makes the eye accept the cut. In the session behind this article it:
- Detected the circle at every shot boundary and checked the outlines on contact sheets, refining five shots to the outer rim rather than an inner ring or a glow.
- Diagnosed why joins felt uneven: a viewfinder growing past the frame, a clock smaller than the planet before it, a spin that reversed.
- Built position, scale and rotation paths for each shot so both circles land centred at one third of the frame width.
- Rendered short circular blends where the looks differed, measured the spin angle frame by frame either side of one cut, and removed a slowdown there.
- Confirmed the soundtrack was unchanged by hashing it, and checked every join on the delivered file.
When does this not work well?
When the motif is not a clean shape. A circle can be measured precisely; a face, a doorway or a cloud has no single centre and size, so the match is a judgement rather than a measurement, and some joins will still feel approximate.
Common questions
Can I fix transitions without regenerating shots? Yes. Vizard Agent re-aligns the existing footage.
What if two shots look different? Vizard Agent dissolves inside the shape instead of hard cutting.
Will spins match across a cut? Yes. Vizard Agent measures the angle frame by frame either side.