Text Behind Subject

Text Behind Subject puts a title behind the person in a camera clip or photo. The person stands in front of the title, and the room stays behind it. A shape, picture or graphic can go behind a person the same way.

Menu: Insert ▸ Text Behind Subject
Where: Clip tab ▸ Picture ▸ Behind Subject
Needs: Nothing. The masks are made on your Mac, with no key and no upload.
Agent tools: text_behind_subjectset_video

Text behind subject in one step

Move the playhead to where the title should start, over the camera clip or photo.
If several clips play there, select the one with the person.
Choose Insert ▸ Text Behind Subject. It has no keyboard shortcut.
The new title is selected, so type your text in the Clip tab’s Text sub-tab.

One Undo takes it all back. The step is named Text Behind Subject.

Here’s what the command does:

It adds a track named “Behind Subject” directly above the clip’s track, and above any matte tracks in front of it.
It puts a title on that track, in the look a new text clip starts with, running from the playhead for 4 seconds, or to the clip’s end if that’s sooner.
It puts the title behind the subject.
If the clip had no Remove Background, it turns that on with Background set to Keep and Subject set to Person, so the picture stays whole and the person still hides the title. A clip that already has a cutout keeps it.

It works with a clip of a video file or a picture that’s playing at the playhead, with its picture on, on a shown track that isn’t a matte track. Of those, it takes the front-most selected clip, else the front-most with Remove Background on, else the front-most.

The item is greyed while a nest is open, and when no such clip plays at the playhead.

Behind subject by hand

Any clip that draws can go behind a subject, except an adjustment clip or a nest clip.

Turn on Remove Background for the camera clip. Set Background to Keep if you want the room to stay.
Put the clip you want behind the person on a track in front of the camera clip, and select it.
In the Clip tab’s Picture sub-tab, open the Behind Subject section and tick Behind subject.

The section comes right after Transform and is closed by default, and its header reads “on” or “off”. The box is off by default and shows as mixed over a selection that disagrees. Changing it is one undo step, Behind Subject, and Reset turns it off.

With one clip selected and the box on, the section says “No cut-out clip is behind it at the playhead.” when nothing cuts the clip there.

With an action selected, the box sets the action’s end, and the clip switches at the action’s end. The row shows “at end”.

The section isn’t offered while a nest is open.

What cuts the clip

A clip with Behind subject on is cut, at every moment, by the subject of every cutout clip on a track behind it. Any clip with Remove Background on counts, with Background set to Remove or Keep.

Track order decides it. A cutout clip on a track in front of the clip doesn’t cut it.

Where no mask is drawn yet, or no subject is found, the clip draws whole. See How the masks are made.

Good to know

A subject inside a nest cuts a top-level title when the nest clip is behind the title. A top-level camera never cuts a title inside a nest, because a nest is one picture to the timeline.
The clip’s shadow is cut with it.
A clip cut this way gets no motion blur. It draws sharp, and so does the outline that cuts it.

With an agent

text_behind_subject does what the menu item does, and it can also take the title’s text, its start time and the clip to go behind. It works on the top-level timeline only, and it leaves the selection as it was. An agent can also turn behind_subject on inside a nest with set_video, where the section isn’t offered, and it works among the clips of that nest. See Tools: text, shapes and clip names and Tools: picture and grade.

Text Behind Subject