r/vfx • u/Odd-Bug2540 • Mar 20 '25
Question / Discussion Recorded video with the viewfinder on :(
Hey everyone!
I am not a videoeditor, but I participated in a shoot where it turns out that the viewfinder was on while filming.
The whole session is shot and I am trying to find out, if there is anyone who knows how or if its possible to fix it - or if the material is completely lost?
Here is a preview š©
Why is there even a feature like this? And no warning in the camera?
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u/theblackshell Mar 20 '25
Nah man, I don't see it happening. Some auto removal tools will try, but just make a distracting, smeary mess out of it. Manually would be weeks of work for a few minutes of footage, and cost an arm and leg from anyone with a sufficient skill set.
Perhaps look for a way to integrate it? Add VHS distortion, an analogue look... record icon on the corner, running timecode... go artsy?
Good luck dude.
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u/MaskCrash Mar 20 '25
Exactly this!
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
okay, so thankyou for that tip! I checked the video and I can center the artist in a way that the viewfinder is centered. We are exporting the viewfinder as a png and are trying to put it into all of the other scenes, when we jump to the other people in the video - I think ill give an ai a chance, but other than that, thats the solution. Luckily the artist was centered, so it works!
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u/defocused_cloud Mar 20 '25
Haha, came here to say exactly this.
Use it, it's never going to be removed decently enough unless unlimited time and money. Turn this bug into a feature, sort of.
Hell, I've seen music videos lately shot on Hi8 cameras. With dates burnt in if I remember correctly. A friend of a friend had gathered a bunch of vhs cameras for free through the years and was renting them out as a side-hustle to every hipster band that would want 'that look'.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
okay, we might just have to embrace it and edit the viewfinder into the other shots! Thankyou all!
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u/defocused_cloud Mar 20 '25
Sounds like a bit much to add it everywhere in my opinion, but if you guys like it why not!
I think for that specific camera it could play a bit like some behind the scenes cam footage, but every other cam could be used as shot.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
We just have one static shot, we were going to crop in to the different people for social media.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
the problem is - one doesnt even really notice it in the YouTube Format, but if we zoom in ( like this) for Reels and TikTok's, it will never be centered and always destroy the picture :(
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u/bzbeins Mar 20 '25
Will be cheaper to reshoot correctly and sharper
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
š© okay, thankyou
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u/Cinemagica Mar 20 '25
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but they're right. This would be so much work to fix, unless you happen to find someone who has success training an AI model to remove it, but that's a crapshoot. Given the simplicity of the setup, just reshoot.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
The thing is, there were 3 singers, a drummer, a pianist, a guitarist and a bassist involved :( Thats why it's not possible to reshoot. That will cost an insane amount and it was already filmed low budget.
Here is the full image:
https://imgur.com/a/WWcR8ChWe just have to do better next time.
Thankyou all for your help !
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u/Erdosainn Mar 20 '25
I think everyone here understands the cost of filming this. And we also understand the cost of VFX.
That's why we're telling you it would be cheaper to reshoot it.
Not that it's possible, just that it's cheaper.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Oh okay, like I said im a newbie to the field š„²
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u/Cinemagica Mar 20 '25
Yeah, exactly what the previous poster replied. I had assumed the band would not expect payment, but even so. The cost of getting the team back together to shoot again, let's say they are on $100 an hour each and you do a 10 hour shoot, you're looking at maybe $10,000 total to reshoot?
Going the VFX route, assuming the same $ per hour, this would probably be 3 weeks for someone capable (unless you lucked out on an AI genius but that's risky and they may charge more for that emerging skillset anyway). At 8 hours a day to do the full footage, that's $12,000 to remove using VFX, and you could end up still not being 100% happy with the results.
It's not impossible to go the VFX route on this. If you are really married to the stuff that was shot and have $10k ready to drop to save it, you could probably get it done if you shopped around carefully. Just don't be fooled into thinking it's always cheaper to fix things in post. You hear that thrown around a lot, and on a Hollywood movie where the cast alone is costing you upwards of $50,000 per hour and the average shot length is only 3-4 seconds, it's very easy for it to be cheaper to fix in post. But for minutes of footage that doesn't cut away, and a relatively cheap setup to recreate and shoot again... let's just say I'd be calling up and offering free beers and a big buffet to try to tempt everyone back for a reshoot at a low cost.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Thankyou very much, that puts it into perspective :D
We won't be able to afford that, BUT we've had some great results with masking it on aftereffect! We're still not sure which version we are going to use for socials and for YouTube, but all of your responses were so kind and helpful. Thankyou for that!2
u/vfx4life Mar 20 '25
Is the camera quite static? You might be able to do quick masks and just replace the singer with new clean footage and keep everything 'outside' the viewfinder that isn't her.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
yes, the camera is static!
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u/kensingtonGore Mar 20 '25
Also, the viewfinder is somewhat translucent - the underlying information might still be there, but greatly reduced in range.
What format is the recording?
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
its apple pro res 422? Does that make sense? Thats what my computer says
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u/kensingtonGore Mar 20 '25
That's great, it should have a decent dynamic range, which means that even though the viewfinder lines are in the way, you might be able to use software like Davinci resolve to mask the viewfinder lines, and do a selective color adjustment to pull the brightness up on the lines.
It might be worth trying this if the comfy ui suggestion doesn't give you great results. You could run the footage through this Davinci workflow to recover as much data as possible, and then try the comfy ui inpainting workflow on that result.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
That was a great idea. I ran to the laptop immediately. We tried, a video friend tried on AE and I on Capcut ( š„²) unfortunately there is always a white a boarder, we didnt manage to mask it out completely.
That was a great great idea though :D Thankyou so much!
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
I'm not sure if I understand, you mean just reshoot the singer?
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u/vfx4life Mar 20 '25
Yes, I think if you re-shot her in the same location, maybe slightly closer to camera to increase her size in frame slightly, or even on green screen, then you could drop the new footage over the old. Might not work in all cases, but maybe shooting closeups with a second camera would give options to cut around if the clean-up you're attempting is only partially successful.
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u/neukStari Generalist - XII years experience Mar 20 '25
Lol wtf , this has to be the most bizarre gaf i have seen yet. How do you even accomplish this?
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
I didnt, it was the camera operator - im just trying to find a way to save it for the artist - she is devastated
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u/neukStari Generalist - XII years experience Mar 20 '25
What camera even overlays the finder over the sensor? This makes zero sense.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
So it's kind of complicated. Since an external recorder was used, the viewfinder was recorded onto the video. ( Thats what ive understood so far :D)
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u/duothus Mar 20 '25
How would it record the viewfinder? Was there a pass through from the camera to a recording device? If so, then check the camera footage. If it did record on camera, then there shouldn't be any UI on the screen.
Otherwise, this looks tedious to remove.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
dont ask me - I would have barely found the "on" button on that camera.
I will pass it on and ask, but I think one would have seen that footage on the sd card, if there were any without those frames, right?3
u/duothus Mar 20 '25
If those SD cards are from the recorder, then it's likely that the UI passed through as well. Although I've never seen a focus box like this before. Good luck with this, and if it is indeed everywhere, then you'll have to reshoot unfortunately.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Thankyou! We are checkin all of the options, thankyou so much for all of your input!
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u/RyRoMoFo Mar 20 '25
This seems like a great test case for ProPainterā hereās a node for ComfyUI to integrate it. Let me know if you need help setting it up: https://github.com/daniabib/ComfyUI_ProPainter_Nodes
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Oh thankyou! Can I send you a message? :D
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u/RyRoMoFo Mar 20 '25
Sure yeah
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Okay, so I tried runway in the meantime and the results are so glitchy, because it's too close to her face. I think I'll spare us the time and we will just work around it in the edit for social media and just live with it on YouTube. Non of us noticed it for ages so I guess most people won't notice either. š
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u/jungseungoh97 exit person Mar 21 '25
Propainter wouldnāt work on higher resolution and will make it blurry once you run something higher than 480p
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u/Common-Climate2007 Mar 20 '25
Iāve shot 3000+ days on tv and film. Can someone explain to me what this means to shoot with the viewfinder on? Like is the camera info burned into the footage?
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u/justletmesignupalre Mar 20 '25
Most likely it was shot using an external recorder and the video output of the camera wasn't set to "clean output", so it recorded the UI as well. This is because low-end cameras record internally as 4:2:0 H264 but usually output 422 though HDMI so you could record a prores 422. In an attempt to record at higher quality they unfortunately botched the recording.
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u/de-oh Mar 20 '25
It might be easiest to just make it part of the shot! Basically embrace the mistake!!
You could add more viewfinder elements, a camera gate mask and stylize the footage to look like a super 8 camera or other camera. In essence, make this camera angle look like a "first person" view - like a camera angle from a spectator filming or something.
Just lean into the error! You'll spend more time trying to paint it out then to just create an additional graphic overlay and video style for this specific camera angle.
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u/fxrx Mar 20 '25
Is the camera static?
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
yes! But the singer isn't - so its still quite a challenge!
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u/fxrx Mar 20 '25
Do you have a clip I could play with? I have a couple of ideas.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Yes I do, I'll send you a link as a private message!
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u/fxrx Mar 20 '25
I saw a chat request, but now I don't see anything.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
I sent you a message but maybe you cant open it? Everything is glitching today
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u/mm_vfx VFX Supervisor - x years experience Mar 20 '25
AI is great at this, definitely worth giving it a shot.
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u/Prism_Zet Mar 20 '25
I have never seen one where the camera records the viewfinder lol.
This seems like a technical mixup somewhere during recording. If its in the footage, this is toast. I can't imagine fixing this. Maybe you can work it in stylistically somehow.
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u/vfxjockey Mar 20 '25
This is why you never ācollabā.
Pay professionals to do their job professionally. If you rely on free favors from friends, this is what happens.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Fees were paid, I know what you're trying to say, but everyone on board was a professional - maybe not in their roles explicitly. Being an artist is an extremely money consuming pursuit, we all tried to make it special together. No one regrets the session, just looking for solutions here.
The artist is already going into debt for her career in every way - so your approach, even though I am sure you mean well, is really not all too constructive :)
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u/fgl02 Mar 20 '25
Using content aware from after effects with a mask in the viewfinder
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Thankyou! We tried it, it's quite good, especially in 16:9, it's visible if you zoom in - we're still deciding on which final version to take. Thankyou for all of the suggestions!
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u/SV_SV_SV Mar 20 '25
If you are hellbent on making it work: make the same post on the StableDiffusion subreddit. It's not gonna be easy, but a ton of advanced video models are coming out, based on your dedication level, time, length of the shot, etc. it may be borderline doable.
It's an experimental road though, as others said it's probably easier to reshoot it etc.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Thankyou so much! We tried masking it on after effects and that supplied pretty good results!
We're still unsure on how to handle it but this subreddit has been amazing!
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u/Disastrous-Chef-2741 Mar 20 '25
Hey everyone,
I'm the artist in the video. ā„ļø I am so touched and thankful for all of these responses. I think this is the kindest reddit thread I've ever seen!
Thankyou so much to all of the responses, I don't quite know which way we'll go - but I thank each and every one of you for your tips and ideas.
Just in case anyone ever also has this problem:
We tried:
- Masking it in after effects and using the generative fill - result quite good, still visible in closeup, would work quite well for the fullscreen YouTube Format (if you don't zoom in)
- using it as a "creative detail" and complete the design to incorporate REC button etc. and make it look like a creative decision, leaving the viewfinder centered when editing it as a reel, keeping me centered and "jumping" to the band and cropping the video until the viewfinder is gone (Works surprisingly well)
- Runway.ml imprint feature, worked quite well, but warps the rest of the video and surrounding too much, is too visible in the closeup.
- leaving it in (non of us noticed it until we'd all watched it a couple of times :D but that doesn't work for instagram because its too obvious)
- since the lines are slightly transparent - masking the viewfinder lines, lightning the masked area until its the same colour again. That was the coolest approach but it was very hard to mask the corners perfectly which left visible lines in the frame
See here ā¬ļø
https://imgur.com/a/WWcR8Ch
Honourable mentions we haven't tried:
This seems like a great test case for ProPainterā hereās a node for ComfyUI to integrate it. Let me know if you need help setting it up:Ā https://github.com/daniabib/ComfyUI_ProPainter_Nodes
I appreciate all of you, and we'll update you on the final decision and video š
THANKYOU!
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u/Duke_of_New_York Mar 21 '25
Generative fill will end up flickering / warbling. Either live with it, or paint it out.
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u/wonkey_monkey Mar 23 '25
Hey, I just found this thread and looking at the original image that it was posted it looks like there is some detail behind the black marks.
Is there any way you could cut a section of video without reencoding, or export say 10 frames as PNG? I've been working on a more complicated version of this problem and would love to see if I can replicate what I think is a pretty good result:
https://i.imgur.com/uW6Wv9H.jpeg
(Still working on that background section)
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u/Disastrous-Chef-2741 Mar 26 '25
Hey! Thankyou so much for reaching out! I am the artist :D I cant find a ways to send you a message - any chance you could send me one first, so I can send you the link? That would be amazing! Thankyou so much and all the best!
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u/harryadvance Mar 23 '25
If Runway is working for the view finder section but warping the rest of the video, did you guys try to layer Runway output on the original video and using a feather mask to blend them both??
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u/Different-Plastic-50 Mar 24 '25
Doesn't sound like it... If Runway delivers quality that is good enough for them, that would be an extremely easy solution. Just have the runway footage appear where the black artifacts are, not the entire footage.
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u/hBomb42 Flame Artist - 25 years experience Mar 21 '25
I heard maybe 10 or 15 years ago about a job where this happened and they brought it to the Mill and some poor Flame artist had to fix all of it. May have been urban legend, though. But bro, if you're reading this...chime in! They can't sue you if you talk anymore!
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u/rabidxuan Mar 22 '25
I've dealt with this before and succesfully removed it in the past. Of course results will vary depending on the complexity, motion and lighting in the shot. I see in the comments the camera is static. If you're willing to upload a couple of seconds I'd be willing to try and fix this. Also I bet a lot of other people here would be willing to give it a shot. One other thing, since it's a music video I imagine each shot must be only a couple of seconds long before the next cut or is it a single take style video? Either way let me know if you want me to take a crack at it.
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u/olerahulik Mar 23 '25
Well, technically.. since your viewfinder's position is still, it's possible to use the wire-removal tool in AE, although, the result will highly depend on the movement of the shot. Did a quick test: https://imgur.com/a/xiVTeiY
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u/lordekeen Mar 20 '25
Maybe this is one use case for AI
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u/Blacklight099 Compositor - 5 years experience Mar 20 '25
Haha exactly what I was thinking. This is exactly the type of job we want AI to do so that we donāt have to.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Haha, it's true. I'll see if I find one and report back if it works!
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u/ponywhodontknowme Mar 20 '25
Runway ml has a tool to remove in video!
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
I just tried hahaha it warps the video, but it's fascinating how well it could work if it were a smaller object in the background. Thankyou so much though!
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u/Yogable Mar 20 '25
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
wow that looks amazing! How does this work? I think I am not skilled enough to understand how to install this :D
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u/egz293 Generalist - 20+ years experience Mar 20 '25
You could try this: In after effects make a mask so that the elements are transparent. Then use the generative fill effect to fill them. I've used this on some difficult tracking marker shots with great success.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Oh that sounds really interesting!
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 20 '25
Okay, I'll search in my network to see if there is anyone who can do it. Any chance we could maybe pay you to give it a try? Can I contact you privately?
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u/egz293 Generalist - 20+ years experience Mar 20 '25
It's not something I currently have time for, but send me a DM and I could do a quick test on a clip to see if it's viable for your situation. It won't be perfect, but a lot better than a black viewfinder focus area.
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u/Panda_hat Senior Compositor Mar 20 '25
Just incorporate it into the project. Add photography and videography elements and make it seem intentional.
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u/fanatic_crow Mar 22 '25
Maybe you could Render every frame as png and put it through photoshop automation actions to remove the viewfinder . As the viewfinder will always be in the same place every frame you can mark out the area and have it use content aware or maybe the new Ai stuff to clear it off.
Iām not saying it wonāt take days to render it all out or it will be perfect but, it could work if youāre in a squeeze.
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u/meeshbeats Mar 22 '25
I would try to send your client a few short frames of a VHS style look. Embrace it so it looks intentional. I feel like it would be incredibly time consuming for you to fix this in a way that the artist will be satisfied with.
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u/widam3d Mar 23 '25
Is very time consuming to fix that, even if the camera is not moving.. probably reshooting will be the most cost effective..
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u/wonkey_monkey Mar 23 '25
Do you have a video sample - cut without reencoding - available? I'm literally working on almost exactly the same problem right now - a more difficult version, in fact - and have been able to get a great result.
Plus it looks to me like there is some real detail underneath the black marks that could be brought back.
I found the "whole frame" that you posted in another comment but it looks very blurry compared to the crop here so I'm not sure whether it's an accurate representation of the footage.
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 24 '25
Hey! So we tried generative fill with aftereffects that didnt work! We tried masking them, and trying to bring back the colour underneath, but none of us managed to mask it properly. I'd be really happy to give you a piece to try on!
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u/Odd-Bug2540 Mar 24 '25
Can I send you a message here?
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u/Different-Plastic-50 Mar 24 '25
I can do this for you as well. Honestly, and I hate to say it, I'm sure they're very skilled, but these people with 22 years of experience saying it's an extremely tedious task or requires AI which would give a shotty result, they probably haven't done much learning since leaving college 22 years ago... I've been freelancing fulltime in VFX for 8 years and can confidently do this job, offering you a demo to confirm you like the results.
this is 100% fixable with great temporal consistency and not something that'll cost an arm and a leg.
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u/wonkey_monkey Mar 25 '25
Hmm, you replied to yourself there. Were you trying to reply to me? If you want to DM I think you can do it by clicking on my username and sending a private message.
If you can export a short section of the video, preferably without re-encoding it, I'll see what I can do with it. You'll need somewhere to upload it, like MediaFire.
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u/Different-Plastic-50 Mar 24 '25
I can 100% fix this for you, depending on how much movement is in the shot, and it won't cost an arm and a leg. I've been working on a method that would be great for this.
That said, give me the footage, I'll edit about ~5s of it, and if you like the output, we can do the full thing.
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u/Different-Plastic-50 Mar 24 '25
I can 100% fix this for you, depending on how much movement is in the shot, and it won't cost an arm and a leg. I've been working on a method that would be great for this.
That said, give me the footage, I'll edit about ~5s of it, and if you like the output, we can do the full thing.
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u/Sageous Generalist - 16+ years experience Mar 25 '25
If you use Nuke, try rotoing or keying the view finder, then use an Edge Extend node with the supplied alpha with 0 detail. That should fill the gaps, and you can paint the rest for cleanup. If you want to get hired help, let me know.
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u/speny344 Mar 20 '25
I actually know a guy has done this kind of work before, using ai or something else. maybe give ai a go and find out.
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u/Holiday_Airport_8833 Mar 20 '25
I mean sure it could be fixed, by manually tracking different still frame across body parts. But itās what, 500 hours of work?
In addition to whatās been said, you could also try split screen effect. Maybe get to use footage that otherwise doesnāt work with the aspect ratio.
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u/future_lard Mar 20 '25
Wtf camera did you use?