Background Blurring and Removal: During Recording or After

Vocal Video allows respondents to blur the background during recordings -- just like you can in Zoom or Google Meet. But Vocal Video also allows users to edit the background on already recorded videos in the editor. This guide will show you how to do both. AI Background Effects can help maintain privacy, reduce distractions, and add a professional touch to your videos.

Blurring Your Background While Recording

New on-screen controls make it very easy to for respondents to turn background blurring on or off and to choose between two levels of blurring while recording. Simply look for the AI Effects Icon, which will open up a pop-up screen.

The respondent can choose to have no blur, medium blur or high blur then click OK.

Now the recording will have a blurred background.

If you want to further edit the background of a recorded video, by say removing and replacing it with a custom image, you can do that in the video editor by following the instructions laid out below.

Editing Video Background After Recording 

Blurring, removing or replacing a video's background after recording requires a  Pro Plan. However, you can preview what these themes look like in the video editor, even if you're on a Free or Essential plan.

To get started with AI effects, simply open a draft video, then click the AI Effects button on the right tool bar.

You will see four options pop up for AI Effects. You can leave the video's background as-is, you can blur it, you can remove the background or you can replace the background with a new background of your choosing. Any AI Effect you choose will be applied to all video scenes in your video, including uploaded video scenes.

Note: AI effects work best on Chrome or Edge and require a fast computer. But don't worry! Even if your browser or computer aren't fast enough to show the AI Effects in the video editor they will still be processed and added to your published videos.

Blur

To blur the background of your video scenes click on Blur Background. You can adjust the amount of blur with the slider. Blurring a background can be useful when the backdrop of your video is distracting or private.

Remove

You can remove the background of your video scenes altogether. If you remove the background of your video scenes the default background for the theme of your video will replace the background. 

If you do not want the default background to show behind the speaker, you can upload a custom image. To upload a custom image, start by going to the settings for the video scene in the left toolbar. Look for the pencil icon.

Next you will want to click over to the third tab, titled "Background".

From here you can select from any of the provided backgrounds or you can upload your own, custom image.

By using the Remove feature you can select or upload a custom background image for each video scene.

Replace

You can also replace the background of your video scenes with an uploaded background scene of your choosing. By choosing the replace the background, one replacement background will be used for every video scene in your video.

Default AI Background Settings

If you like one of these AI Effects background features so much that you want it to be the default for all future videos, you can do that by going to Settings > Default Video Settings where you can select a new default AI Effects background setting.