How to Write AI VFX Prompts for Removing People from Shots

Removing background pedestrians, bystanders, and unwanted people from shots is one of the most frequent cleanup tasks in post-production — and one of the most improved by AI. What used to require frame-by-frame roto and background plate work can now be handled with a single prompt. Here's how to write one that works.

Person removal prompts need to be specific about two things: who exactly to remove (their location and movement in the frame) and what should appear in their place (the background environment behind them). Omitting the second part is the most common reason for imprecise fills — the AI guesses rather than generates with intent.

The ideal scenario for person removal is a pedestrian crossing through the background of an otherwise static or slow-moving camera shot, in front of a readable background environment (street, building, wall). The AI tracks the person's movement across the clip and fills behind them throughout. This workflow takes under 90 seconds and eliminates what would otherwise be hours of manual roto work.

What FXbuddy needs in a person removal prompt

• Who to remove: one pedestrian, multiple background people, a specific person at a specific location
• Location in frame: background left, mid-ground centre, walking from left to right across the mid-ground
• Movement description: stationary, crossing from left to right, walking toward camera, exiting right mid-clip
• Background fill instruction: what should appear in their place — street, wall, park, crowd (if partial removal)
• Preserve instruction: which people to keep — main subject, a specific group, everyone in the foreground

5 example prompts you can copy

Common mistakes

• No preserve instruction: If you don't tell the AI which people to keep, it may remove the main subject along with the background pedestrians. Always add "keep the main subject/foreground subject completely unchanged."
• No background fill description: "Remove the person in the background" without describing what's behind them produces a guess rather than an intentional fill. Always describe the environment that should appear in their place.
• Removing the foreground subject: Person removal is designed for background or mid-ground elements. Attempting to remove the primary foreground subject produces a complete scene reconstruction rather than targeted removal.
• Too many people in a complex scene: Scenes where 10+ people fill the frame are better addressed as a full background replacement rather than individual person removal. Describe the target as "empty [location type]" for a more reliable result.

Tips for better person removal results

• For documentary and news content, removing background pedestrians from a talking-head interview shot (where the subject is stationary and the background contains incidental foot traffic) is one of the cleanest possible removal scenarios.
• Specifying when in the clip the person appears helps the AI focus its generation: "person walks into frame from the left at approximately the midpoint of the clip and exits the top-right in the final quarter."
• For clips where you need to remove someone but keep the bench, chair, or prop they were sitting on, explicitly say "the [furniture] should remain — only the person removed."
• After person removal on a clip with camera movement, check the edges of the fill area at the start and end frames where the person was at maximum exposure in the frame. Those are the highest-risk frames for visible seams.
• Combining person removal with background replacement ("remove all background people and replace the entire background with an empty version of the same street") sometimes produces cleaner results than trying to fill around each individual person.

Frequently asked questions

Can FXbuddy remove a person who is walking through the background?

Yes. Background pedestrians are one of the most common removal requests. Describe both where they appear and what the clean background should look like: "remove the pedestrian crossing through the background mid-ground from left to right. fill with the street and building facade visible behind them throughout the clip." The AI tracks the movement and fills behind them.

What happens to the area the person was standing in?

FXbuddy generates what would logically be behind the removed person based on the surrounding environment. If the person is in front of a building wall, the AI fills with wall. The more you describe the background environment explicitly in your prompt, the more accurately the fill matches the rest of the scene.

Can I remove a person who is close to the main subject?

Removing people who are close to the main subject is harder than removing background pedestrians, because the AI must generate background fill that extends into the zone around the main subject. If they're overlapping or very close, a two-pass approach (removal then cleanup) may be needed.

Can I use person removal to make a busy location look empty?

For locations with a small number of people (2-5 in the background), yes. For fully crowded scenes, it's more effective to describe the target as: "remove all background pedestrians and replace with an empty street, continuing the road and building surfaces throughout."

Related prompt guides

Also see the AI Object Removal effect page for a full workflow walkthrough.