Creating a Split Screen Using the Crop Effect

Creating a "Split Screen" Using the Crop Effect

Now that you have both clips loaded into the Timelineone on the Video 1 track and one on the Video 2 trackyou'll use the Crop effect on the "ghost" clip to make the two clips appear to be a single clip. This is a classic, time-honored technique used to make it appear that two actors are standing in the same scene when they actually are not. In fact, it's often used with a single actor to make it appear that there are twins in the scene. It's been used famously in films such as "The Parent Trap" (both the Haley Mills and Lindsay Lohan versions).

Apply the Crop Effect to the "Ghost" Clip

Click the Effects and Transitions button on the Media panel to switch to the Effects and Transitions view.

In the text box on the Effects and Transitions view, type crop.

Drag the Crop effect from the Transform section of the Video Effects and drop it on the ghost.avi clip in the Video 2 track on the Timeline.

Did You Know?

You can choose among your favorites. You don't always have to go through the process of searching for an effect among all of the effects and transitions that Premiere Elements has available. You can save any effect that you use regularly as a favorite. Premiere Elements makes this real simple. If you look at the bottom of the Media panel when the Effects and Transitions view is active, you'll notice a bright yellow star icon, right next to the Delete icon (the trash can). Just select any effect, preset, or transition that you like or use regularly. Then, click this star button (which is actually called the Add to Favorites button). The first time you use the button, it will create a new category in the Effects and Transitions panel, called Favorites, and it will use the yellow star as its icon. Notice, too, that at the top of the Effects and Transitions view is a row of buttons. Each one lets you filter the list by video effects, audio effects, transitions, andyou guessed ityour favorites.

Create the Split

Select the Crop effect on the Properties panel (so that it's highlighted). This will reveal the control handles for the effect in the Monitor panel.

Tip

Drag the CTI so that it is over the ghost.avi clip in the Video 2 track so you can see it in the Monitor panel.

Twirl the triangle next to Crop to view the effect's controls.

Grab the handle in the upper left corner of the Monitor panel and drag it across the Monitor until you have reached 40% of the way across.

Tip

At 40%, the edge of the ghost.avi clip should now be just after the edge of the book that the actor in no-ghost.avi is reading (see illustration).

Did You Know?

You can handle it differently. Using handles is the easiest and most intuitive way to control a crop. However, if you're one of those folks who'd rather control the position of the "crop box" numerically, use the Properties panel. Just click the arrow next to Crop and adjust the percentages for the following parameters as needed:

• Left

• Top

• Right

• Bottom

Understanding Opacity

How Opacity Works

Premiere Elements supports the Friendly Ghost Effect through the use of a function called "opacity," which you may more readily understand as "transparency." That is, it's the quality (or lack of) "see-throughness," if you will, of a video clip.

When used by itself (that is, over an empty track or "nothingness"), decreasing opacity on a clip will appear to make the clip darker, as shown in the image at left (which is set at 50% opacity). When used over another clip, the second clip acts as a background clip (as shown in the sequence of pictures at the bottom of these two pages).

When two clips are for the most part identical, with only one element changing (specifically, it's becoming transparent, or in other words, losing opacity) it appears that only that element is changing, when, in fact, everything in that clip is actually changing.

An Apple Appears to Appear

Along the bottom of these two pages are illustrations from two clips, superimposed over each other. One is of a table without an apple; the other clip of the same table, with an apple placed on top.

The opacity of the "apple" clip is set to gradually increase over time, from 0% to 100%. This makes it seem as if the apple is appearing out of thin air. (This particular effect can also be accomplished by cross-dissolving from one clip to the other.)

This works because all other elementsthe table, the placemats, the plantsare exactly the same in each shot. The only difference is the apple. This is simply an illusion, a kind of a magic trick created with a camcorder and video editing software.

Requirements for Success

Even in the clips below, which were filmed literally within seconds of each other, you can begin to see the shadows shifting as the sun moves slowly in the sky. This is rule number one whenever you plan to use the Opacity control in this way: the sun is your enemy. As light and shadows change, the effect will become less and less convincing. Film as quickly as you can whenever you are creating scenes like these.

The second requirement for success is the tripod. Without one, you will fail. It's that simple. Even the slightest variation in angle or position from one clip to the other and the whole thing is ruined. It simply won't be believable. If you don't have a tripod or a monopod, find a way to rest the camcorder on a table, chair, shelf, or other rock-solid surface.

One Last Thing

One last trick of the trade. Once you switch on your camcorder to film your clips for this type of project, don't turn it off. This no doubt seems counter-intuitive because people (or their hands, in the case of props being moved in and out of the scene) will be filmed. This may appear to give the "trick" away, but it really won't. Remember, back in your "studio," you can edit all that out.

What you don't want when filming is even the slightest change in the camcorder's position, which even the gentlest pressing of the Record button to stop and start filming can do.