AI paint-out. Rigs, wires, logos, crew: gone by tomorrow.
The highest-volume, least-glamorous line on most shows, and the one that quietly eats the schedule, because a paint artist patches it frame by frame. Our AI removes the object and rebuilds what was behind it across the whole shot in one pass, and an artist checks every frame. We take it as overflow inside the pipeline you already run: plates in your naming convention, delivered to your spec.
Louvre courtyard · 10 s · 1080p · people and their shadows removed in one pass, camera move kept
ProRes
What a paint department patches by hand, the model removes 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Rig and wire removal | Tracked and painted frame by frame | Removed and the background rebuilt in one pass |
| Clean plates | A second take, or a week of paint | Generated from the plate you already have |
| Turnaround | Days per shot, weeks per sequence | 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: fine repeating texture under a removed object, reflections, and anything that crosses the cast. Every frame is checked before it leaves.
What we take off a plate
Cleanup is a family of jobs, not one job. They price differently because they fail differently.
Stunt wires, rigs, harnesses, safety mats
Props, vehicles, modern anachronisms
Boom, crew in mirrors, camera in glass
Brands, trademarks, uncleared artwork
Greenscreen markers, witness points
Frame-level defect paint
Blemishes, tattoos, wardrobe fixes
Performance joins, plate merges
Reusable backgrounds for the whole cut
What actually comes back
Stated here rather than after you have sent the plate.
| Deliverable | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaned plate | EXR, DPX or ProRes, plate resolution, your colour space | Grain matched to the source rather than smoothed off. Your naming convention and folder structure. |
| Clean plate / patch | EXR still or short sequence | The reusable background, handed over separately so your comp team can re-use it across the cut instead of paying for the same paint twice. |
| Removal matte | EXR or PNG alpha | The isolated region, on request. Useful when your artist wants to blend the patch themselves. |
| Layered comp | Nuke .nk script | Available as a scoped extra where you want the setup rather than only the render — quoted separately, because handing over a workable script is separate work. |
| Review | Your tool | Frame.io, ftrack, SyncSketch or whatever your team runs. Versioned to your conventions. |
One thing worth asking for up front: the clean plate. Most vendors deliver only the finished frames, which means the next shot in the same location gets billed as a fresh job. Ask for the patch and you own it.
AI paint has a specific blind spot
It is very good at inventing plausible texture, and it does not know what was actually behind the thing you removed. Where the answer can be borrowed from another frame, it is close to free. Where it has to be invented, an artist has to make the call.
- Locked-off or gently moving camera Clean frames elsewhere in the range to borrow the patch from.
- Rigs and wires against sky, wall or flat surfaces The classic case, and near-solved.
- Logos and signage on flat planes Planar tracking plus fill holds rock-steady.
- Tracking markers Small, high-contrast, predictable — the cheapest cleanup there is.
- Long ranges of the same fix The saving compounds across frames; a 600-frame rig removal is where we are furthest ahead of a manual bid.
- Dust, dirt and sensor busts Frame-level defects with clean surroundings.
- Removal over moving, detailed texture Foliage, crowds, water, fire. The fill is invented and it usually looks it.
- Nothing to borrow from Where the object occludes its own background in every single frame, there is no clean plate to recover — that is a build, not a patch.
- Shadows and reflections of the removed object Models take the object and leave its shadow. Catching that is an artist noticing, not a model knowing.
- Lighting cast by the removed object Remove a practical lamp and the light it threw has to go too.
- Heavy grain and film weave A smooth patch inside a grainy plate reads instantly. Grain has to be rebuilt, not preserved.
- Motion blur across the removal boundary The patch edge has to blur with the plate, not sit under it.
- Long takes with camera roll The patch drifts over time and needs re-anchoring.
If the shot is in the right-hand column we will tell you, and we will tell you before you have paid for it. A cleanup vendor who never says “this one is a build” is a vendor who is about to hand you a plate that fails in review.
How a shot moves through
No onboarding, no integration project. We fit the way your team already works.
We don’t publish a cleanup rate card
Two shots of identical length can differ by an order of magnitude in effort depending on what sits behind the thing being removed. A card that prices them the same is either overcharging you on one or losing money on the other.
| Driver | Effect on price |
|---|---|
| What is behind it | The biggest lever by a wide margin. Sky and flat wall are cheap; moving foliage and crowd are not. |
| Is there a clean frame | If the background is visible anywhere in the range, the patch is recovered. If not, it is built — a different job. |
| Camera movement | Locked-off is cheapest. Handheld with roll and parallax needs the patch re-anchored over time. |
| Shadows and reflections | Removing the object is half of it. Removing what it cast is the other half, and it is often the larger half. |
| Grain and film weave | Heavy grain means rebuilding grain across the patch, not just filling the hole. |
| Frame count | Favours us. Per-frame cost falls as the range grows, which is why long rig removals are where we are furthest under a manual bid. |
| Volume commitment | Slate or episodic volume prices materially below one-off shots. |
Faster than a rate card: send one shot — ideally whichever one your current vendor is slowest or dearest on. We return a finished 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 and we will tell you straight whether we can get there, including when we can’t.
Frequently asked questions
What can AI cleanup and paint remove?
Rigs, wires, tracking markers, crew, logos and signage, plus moving people and vehicles. For a fully empty background, see AI clean plates.
How long does AI cleanup take?
24–48 hours on a standard shot, instead of days per shot and weeks per sequence of frame-by-frame paint.
Does it work on moving cameras?
Yes. The object is removed and the background rebuilt across the whole camera move in one pass, not patched frame by frame.
What formats come back?
EXR, DPX or ProRes in your colour space and naming convention, with grain matched to the source.
Is my footage used to train AI models?
No. Footage is covered by an NDA before anything moves, is never used for training without your written consent, and is deleted on delivery.
How much does AI cleanup cost?
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.
Cleanup rarely arrives alone
Most cleanup briefs come with roto attached, and a fair few come with restoration behind them. For a single image, try the self-serve AI image inpainting tool. If CG is going into the cleaned plate, the camera comes from AI camera tracking and matchmove. For moving people, vehicles and their shadows, see AI clean plates. See rotoscoping and matte delivery, restoration and upscaling, or the full AI VFX Studio — 15 production capabilities, 200+ models, human-finished on every shot.
Send us the plate you’re dreading.
One shot, no charge, no commitment. You get a finished plate, the clean patch, and a firm number — and you compare all three against what you have already been quoted.
Send a test shotRig & wire removal · Object & crew removal · 24–48h standard shot · Artist-finished
