Most viewers think of visual effects as explosions and creatures. In commercial work, the bulk of VFX is something else entirely: removing a crew member’s reflection from a car door, painting out a competitor’s sign, or replacing a laptop screen so the interface matches the one that launches next quarter. If the work is done well, nobody sees it. That is the point.
What cleanup actually covers
Cleanup is the collective name for fixing everything in the frame that should not be there. On a typical 30-second commercial shot in Dubai, the list might include:
- Wire and rig removal where a product was suspended or a camera was mounted
- Reflections of crew, lights, or the camera itself in glass, chrome, and car paint
- Skin and product blemishes, dust on a lens, scratches on a prototype
- Logo removal from clothing, vehicles, and signage that was not cleared
- Boom microphones, cables, and safety equipment that crept into the frame
- Continuity fixes, such as a glass that was fuller in one take than the next
Each of these is a separate task, and each is quoted by the shot, not by the second. A two-second shot with a moving camera and a reflective surface can take a full day. A ten-second locked-off shot with a static logo to remove might take an hour.
Compositing: building shots that were never filmed
Compositing is the assembly of elements from different sources into one convincing image. The most common uses in brand work are screen replacement, background replacement, and product insertion.
Screen replacement is everywhere. Phones, tablets, dashboards, and laptop displays are almost always filmed with a green or tracking-marked screen and replaced in post. This lets the client change the interface after the shoot and avoids the flicker and color shift that comes from filming a real display.
Background replacement is how a product shot filmed in a studio ends up on a rooftop at sunset, or how a spokesperson filmed in an office appears in a location that was not available on the shoot day. Product insertion covers cases where the final packaging did not exist yet, or where a hero product needs to look flawless in a way physical objects rarely do.
Why the invisible work is expensive
Clients are sometimes surprised that removing a small object costs more than adding a large graphic. The reason is that removal has to be perfect. A motion graphic can be stylized. A paint-out has to match the real texture, lighting, grain, and motion of the plate, frame by frame, or the viewer’s eye catches the seam.
The difficulty scales with three things: camera movement, surface complexity, and duration. A locked-off shot with a flat wall behind the object is straightforward. A handheld shot where the object passes in front of a person’s face, with reflections in a window behind them, is skilled, slow work. Shot length matters because every frame is a fresh problem. At 25 frames per second, a four-second shot is 100 frames to check.
The role of tracking
Almost every compositing task depends on tracking, which is the process of calculating how the camera and objects moved so that new elements can move with them. Good tracking makes a replaced screen stay locked to the phone through a pan. Poor tracking makes it slide, and sliding is the single most common giveaway in amateur compositing.
Tracking is also where production decisions save or cost money. Tracking markers on a green screen, a slate with lens information, and a few seconds of clean plate without the actor can cut compositing time significantly.
Planning for VFX before the shoot
The cheapest VFX shot is the one you planned for. When we receive a script or storyboard, we flag every frame that will need cleanup or compositing and prepare a list of what the shoot needs to capture. That might mean filming a clean background plate, shooting the product on a turntable separately, or simply repositioning a light to avoid a reflection that would take hours to remove.
Regional clients also often need two versions of a shot, for example a store sign in Arabic and English, or a screen interface localized for each market. Planning those variants before the shoot means one plate and two composites, rather than two separate shoots.
For a 30-second commercial with moderate cleanup and two or three composited shots, allow five to eight working days after picture lock. Heavy work, such as full background replacement across most of the spot, can run two to three weeks. Compositing starts only once the edit is locked, because every change to shot selection or timing means redoing the work on the affected frames.
Gizmo Media Production offers VFX cleanup, compositing, and motion graphics as part of a full post-production pipeline, so the invisible work is handled by the same team that grades and finishes your film. If you have a commercial in planning and want to know what it will need, get in touch and share the script.
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