Keep actors themselves

What goes wrong

• Without help, the model turns an actor into someone else: a different face, hair or shirt.
• Small people far away can disappear.
• Writing “no people” (or “no other people”) removes the actors. The model obeys.
• Confirmed: the source shot as a reference video pins anything it shows clearly (a creature, a place, a face in long or dark shots). Pictures, face crops and prompt wording don’t override it. In our tests the old creature came back even with new design pictures, face crops and “the look comes only from the pictures”; the old set stayed; and on parts longer than about 3 seconds the original actor stayed. So grey out, in the reference copy only, whatever you’re replacing (the old creature, the person you recast, or the background for a new place). The model then takes those from your pictures, and the rest, actors included, from the reference. The result is a full new generation; nothing is pasted back. (Confirmed on creature shots with actors, on recast shots and outfit changes, and on new places on two shows.)
• Grey only clean, solid shapes. If the mask breaks into small scattered pieces (a color mask catching a fading glow, say), the model draws those grey patches as pale shapes: in one test they showed on an actor’s chest. Drop tiny fragments, and end the mask on the frames where the element is gone. With that, a second try had no pale patches, rims or flicker.
• What that means per family:
  • It keeps: the actors, their timing and their sound.
  • It brings back: whatever you’re replacing, unless that is greyed out in the reference copy. Grey out the person you recast, the old creature, or the background for a new place.

What to do

• Name each person who stays as a subject, by what they wear and do: “<Subject 3> is the man in the brown vest, crouching by the nest, exactly as in the source.” One line per person who stays.
• Give each actor a face picture: a tight crop from a close still of the episode, as an extra reference picture (“shown in <Picture 4>”).
• If they speak, their lines and timing in the prompt, and the sound copied: the casting swap recipe (Swap a person).
• Keep the original for a shot where a person is seen from behind: the model turned them round to face the camera.

Check

Step through the result next to the source:

• every few frames, every actor is still themselves; nobody is added, missing or turned into a look-alike;
• small figures far away are the ones that disappear;
• watch medium shots of one person for a see-through double.