Background Blurring and Removal: During Recording or After

Background effects keep the focus on the person speaking: they hide a messy room, protect privacy, and give your videos a polished, consistent look. Respondents can blur their own background while they record, and after recording you can blur, remove, or replace the background of any video in the Video Editor.

In this article:

Blurring Your Background While Recording

Respondents can blur their background while they record, just like in Zoom or Google Meet. It's available on every plan and doesn't use AI credits.

  1. In the recorder, tap the Effects button (the sparkle icon next to the record button).

The Vocal Video recorder on a phone, with an arrow pointing to the Effects button beside the red record button

  1. Under Background Blur, choose Off, Standard, or High. Optimize For lets the respondent favor Speed or Quality.
  2. Tap OK.

The recording now has a blurred background.

The recorder with background blur switched on: the respondent is sharp and the room behind her is blurred

💡 Note: Blur while recording runs on the respondent's own device, and the blur is recorded into the video itself, so it can't be undone afterward. On phones it also records at a lower resolution, and on older or less powerful devices it can make the recording choppy. If that happens, the recorder shows a Low Framerate Detected warning with a button to Disable Background Blur. For collections that matter most, we recommend turning recording blur off and adding blur in the editor after the response comes in: it looks the same on every device, and you can change or remove it at any time.

Turning Off Blur for Recording

Recording blur is on by default for every collector. To turn it off, open the collector, go to Settings, and switch off Enable background blur. Respondents won't see the Effects button.

A video collector's Settings page in Vocal Video. An arrow points to the Enable background blur switch.

Background Effects in the Editor (Pro plans and above)

After recording, you can change the background of any video in the Video Editor. Background effects are part of the Pro, Scale, and Enterprise plans. On Free and Essential you can try them out and preview them in the editor, but you'll need to set the effect back to None before you publish.

  1. Open your video in the editor.
  2. Click AI Tools in the right sidebar.
  3. Under Background Effects, choose an effect: None, Blur, Remove, or Replace.

The AI Tools panel in the video editor, showing Background Effects with None, Blur, Remove and Replace, the Apply to uploaded clips switch, and Studio Sound below. An arrow points to the AI Tools button in the right sidebar.

The effect applies to every recorded clip in the video.

  • Blur: Softens the background behind the speaker. Use the Blur Amount slider (1 to 20) to set how strong it is. Handy when the backdrop is distracting or private.

Background Effects with Blur selected and the Blur Amount slider below, and the speaker's background blurred in the preview

  • Remove: Removes the background and puts the speaker in front of the scene's own background. You can pick a different background for each scene: select the scene, click Scene in the right sidebar, then Background. Choose from solid colors, gradients and a library of stock images, or upload your own. See How to Change Video Format for more on scene backgrounds.
  • Replace: Puts one background image behind the speaker in every scene. Click Upload an Image to use your own; Reset to Workspace Default goes back to your workspace's default image.

Background Effects with Replace selected, a forest replacement image with an Upload an Image button, and the speaker shown in front of the forest in the preview

💡 Note: Background effects preview only in the Chrome and Edge browsers. If you use another browser, you won't see the effect while editing, but it will still be included in your published video.

Uploaded Clips

Recorded responses always get the background effect you choose. Clips you upload yourself get it too, as long as Apply to uploaded clips is switched on (it is by default). Switch it off to leave uploaded clips, such as b-roll or a produced intro, untouched.

Setting a Default Background Effect

Background effect defaults live in your default video template, not in Settings. Go to Video Templates in the left navigation, open the template marked as your default, and click AI Tools in the right sidebar. Anything you set under Background Effects there, including Apply to uploaded clips, is what new videos built from that template start with. Each collector uses your default template unless you connect it to a different one, so you can give different collectors different effects. See Video Templates.

Background Effects and AI Credits

Background effects in the editor are one of the AI effects, along with Studio Sound, filler-word removal and shortened word gaps. Publishing a video with any AI effect on uses 10 AI credits per published minute. You're charged only the first time you publish a video, and the rate stays the same however many AI effects you use: a video with Studio Sound and background blur costs the same as one with Studio Sound alone. Republishing after an edit doesn't use more AI credits.

Blur that respondents add while recording doesn't use AI credits. See AI Credits for how AI credits work and what happens if you run out.

For more information see:

Still need help? Contact Support at support@vocalvideo.com