Experts in video editing and post-production say that it is possible for a video recording to be doctored, but this is a "tedious effort" that will take a lot of time and money.

According to film editor Isazaly Mohamed Isa, the going rate for such work is RM300 a frame, with each second of a video clip containing 25 frames.

"I did a project once, where I needed to remove a piece of wire on the subject. It was five seconds long and cost RM2,000. It took me a whole day to get it perfect," he said when contacted.

Isazaly, who is known as Zalee in the industry, added that much of the work involved tweaking with the lighting, which was highly complicated and took the most time.

"When you paste something onto an object, you have to make sure the light on the object is at the exact angle. As the subject moves from left to right, the focus of the light changes, so you have to match that as well.

"It is impossible for someone to do such a task quickly," said the award-winning film editor, who edited the feature film Susuk .

If done unprofessionally, he said, the object that is superimposed will look as if it is "floating".

Zalee, who is also a certified Apple Final Cut Pro trainer and is part of production studio Kino-i, added that a superimposed job could also be done. This is by shooting a "double" acting out elsewhere, with this clip then superimposed onto the background.

However, this would also require a lot of time tweaking the lighting, he said, especially to avoid any "flicker" behind the subject - which would give it away as a superimposed job.

"This is possible, but it will require technical expertise to make sure that movements match. Even if you shoot in high resolution, you will later have to break it down and add noise… it’s too tedious," he said.

Key elements

Echoing Zalee, an expert who has been involved in the distribution of video production products for the past 10 years told Malaysiakini that even high-tech software cannot hide any disparity in the lighting.

"Nowadays you can get software that can do this for about RM1,000, but the effect won’t be clean. You will see the outline of the original subject and lighting will always be an issue.

"The editor has to use his own eyes to judge the lighting, the software won’t do it this for you," said the expert, who did not want to be named, adding that the camera equipment and green screen technology are easily accessible.

Doctoring a human form in a video is extra complicated, he said, as the lack of proportion can be quite jarring.

"Most of the time, people would want to just replace the head, and the trick to hide the original subject is to make the head a bit bigger - but then it will look strange around the neck… and it is almost impossible to have the subject standing still throughout the video," he said.

He added that while monochrome and low lighting could help hide the discrepancies, mismatch in lighting would be very difficult to hide.

"In allegations of video-doctoring, the key part to look out for is the face, to see if the face can be obviously made out and that the lighting on the face matches the surroundings," he said.

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