AI clean plates. The background, with nobody in it.
A clean plate used to mean a second take with the talent cleared, or a week of roto and paint. Our AI takes the plate you have and returns the same shot with the people, the vehicles and their shadows gone and the background rebuilt across the whole camera move, in one pass, checked frame by frame by an artist.
Louvre courtyard · 10 s · 1080p · people and their shadows removed in one pass, camera move kept
ProRes
What roto and paint do in a week, the model does in one pass
We are not a VFX lab with faster artists. We are an AI lab: the tedious, per-frame work that fills a vendor’s schedule is done by the model in a single pass, and artists are spent only where judgment matters. The result is the same deliverable, in a day or two instead of weeks.
| The job | Traditional VFX lab | Pixazo AI |
|---|---|---|
| Removing moving subjects | Roto every person, every frame | Removed in one pass, cast shadows included |
| Rebuilding the background | Paint and patch, frame by frame | Reconstructed across the camera move by the model |
| Turnaround | A week per shot | 24–48h on a standard shot |
| Cost driver | Artist-hours per frame | Shot class; one free test shot gives the number |
Where the artist still matters: backgrounds the camera never sees, subjects that touch what stays, and reflective floors. Every frame is checked before it leaves.
Same ten seconds, nobody in the courtyard
The slider at the top of the page is a Louvre courtyard plate, 1080p at 24 fps, on a slow push. Every person and their shadow goes; the paving, the pyramid, the clouds and the camera move stay exactly as shot.
Shadows go with the people
Masking a person out of a frame is the easy part. The shadow they cast on the paving, the reflection in a window and the ground they were standing on are what give a clean plate away. The pass was trained on real footage of people, vehicles and moving shadows across different weather, angles and lenses, so what comes back has consistent lighting and texture, not a smeared patch.
What actually comes back
The clean plate is the deliverable, but it is rarely the end of the job. Say what the plate is for and we return it in the form your comp will consume.
| Deliverable | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Clean plate | EXR / DPX / ProRes, your frame rate and colour space | The full shot with moving subjects and their shadows removed and the background reconstructed for the whole camera move. Grain matched to source. |
| Selective removal | Same as above | Remove the extras and keep the cast, or remove one vehicle and keep the traffic. Tell us what stays; the pass is driven by a description of the finished frame. |
| Background element | Per-frame EXR, or a still for a locked-off shot | The clean plate on its own, for green-screen comps, set extension or reuse across a sequence. |
| Subject element + alpha | Per-frame EXR with embedded alpha | The people you removed, isolated with a grey-valued matte, through our matte pipeline, so you can re-time or re-position them over the clean plate. |
| Paint pass | Where needed, on the same plate | Rigs, wires, markers and signage that the clean-plate pass does not target are handled by cleanup and paint in the same delivery. |
The question that decides the scope: does anything you want to keep cross in front of what you want removed? A crowd behind the action is a standard shot. A crowd the cast walks through means rebuilding what was behind moving actors, which is paint, not a pass, and we will say so before quoting.
AI clean plates cannot do every shot
The pass is excellent at moving subjects over a background the camera eventually sees. It cannot invent what was never photographed.
- People, crowds and vehicles that move. Pedestrians, traffic, extras, a drone in the sky. If it moves, the pass knows what was behind it.
- Cast shadows and contact. The shadow on the ground, the reflection in the glass, the footprints. These go with the subject rather than being left behind.
- Camera moves. Pushes, pans, dollies and handheld drift. The background is rebuilt for the move, not frame by frame.
- Any weather and lens. Trained on real exterior and interior footage across conditions, so rain, hard sun and wide lenses are routine.
- Keep some, remove some. The pass is driven by a description of the finished frame, so
empty office, desks and chairs stay
is a complete instruction.
- Backgrounds the camera never sees. A person standing still in front of a wall for the whole shot hides that wall for the whole shot. The rebuild is a guess, and an artist paints it.
- Subjects that touch what stays. Someone leaning on the cast, sitting in the hero car or handing over a prop is a roto-and-paint job, quoted as compositing.
- Static objects. Furniture, parked cars that never move, signage. The pass targets moving subjects; static removal is cleanup and paint.
- Fine, repeating texture at close range. Tiles, brick and gravel right under a removed subject are checked by hand because a repeat pattern is where a rebuild is most likely to show.
- Reflective floors as the subject. A wet street or a marble lobby can be done, but the reflection rebuild is finished by an artist.
What works in the brief: describe the empty location as if it were the shot you wanted: the same courtyard, paving, pyramid and sky, no people, no shadows of people
. Listing what must not remain, including ghosting and half-removed figures, is what tells the pass what clean looks like.
How a clean plate moves through
What moves the number
We do not publish a rate card, because a courtyard on a slow push and a dialogue scene with a crowd walking through it are not the same job. These are the drivers; the test shot gives you the actual figure.
| Driver | Cheaper | Dearer |
|---|---|---|
| Background | Seen by the camera at some point in the shot | Hidden for the whole shot behind a static subject |
| Subjects | Moving people and vehicles behind the action | Subjects that touch or occlude what stays |
| Surface | Paving, grass, open sky, plain walls | Fine repeating texture, wet or reflective floors at close range |
| Length | Under 10 s per shot | Long oners; a reusable plate across a sequence brings the per-second cost down |
| Deliverables | Clean plate only | Subject element with alpha, selective keep-and-remove, paint pass on top |
Faster than a rate card: send one shot, ideally the one your current vendor is slowest or dearest on. We return a finished clean plate and a firm per-shot number for that class of work. If you are already being quoted elsewhere, tell us the number you need to land under.
Frequently asked questions
What does an AI clean plate remove?
Moving people, crowds and vehicles, together with the shadows they cast, with the background rebuilt behind them.
Does it work with a moving camera?
Yes. The background is reconstructed across the whole camera move in one pass.
What if part of the background is never visible?
If a subject hides the same area for the whole shot, there is nothing to rebuild from, so an artist paints it. We flag this on the test shot.
Can it remove objects that do not move?
Static objects such as parked cars, furniture or signage are handled by AI cleanup and paint.
How long does it take and what does it cost?
24–48 hours on a standard shot. We do not publish a rate card. Send one shot free and you get a finished result plus a firm per-shot number for that class of work.
A clean plate is usually step one
Once the plate is empty you can put a different crowd in it, relight it, or comp a subject back over it with a proper alpha matte. Static objects, rigs and markers are handled by cleanup and paint. All of it sits inside the AI VFX Studio: 15 production capabilities, 200+ models, human-finished on every shot.
Send us the plate you wish you had shot empty.
One shot, no charge, no commitment. You get a finished clean plate, the background element alongside it, and a firm number, and you compare all three against the cost of a second take.
Send a test shotPeople, vehicles & shadows · 24–48h standard shot · Artist-finished
