Is there an easy way to split a clip in half so you could have two of the same characters in frame. You see it all the time in movies and tv, you have two characters portrayed by the same actor in two places at once. The only way I could think to do it is shoot the scene twice, once with the actor in each position however how does one make the other side (or 1/2) of the clip transparent to show the actor in the other clip? I'm sorry if it isn't clear, this is the best way I know how to put it.

I appreciate any help that is offered,

Thanks,
Raj

Depending on the background you may not need to make any transparency. If the person (people) are to be the only objects moving in the shot you just need to crop off either side of the clips respectively and overlay them one on top of the other.

If there is any movement it's gets a bit more complex and there's a multitude of ways around it, it all depends on the situation what would be used.

In general there are two ways of creating transparency, keying out colours (such as shooting the subject in front of a green or blue screen) and creating masks (cutting holes in the video that may be repositioned through time).

David.

Thanks for the quick reply. Currently, I am working on no movement subjects but blue or green screening is unavailable for me so I guess I am looking into masking but I am having difficulty figuring it out on Premier. Their help topics on masking are very light and just tell you what to do, not necessarily how to do it specifically.

Masking isn't really available in Premier, you need a more dedicated compositing software for that. After effects is good for loads of stuff and the the masking tools are good, the best I've seen for this type of thing is called silhouette roto. It doesn't really do anything else so it's not very flexible, it's not supposed to be though and it does what it does really well.

You can cowboy it premiere with the 16 point garbage matte tool you can find in the keying folder, it's rare that a 16 point mask without curves is useful though, if it is it can be used or if more points are needed multiple 16 point masks can be built up on multiple layers.

David.

I wasn't sure if it was best to bump this old thread or start a new one asking a very similar question...I decided to bump.

I have picked up Adobe After Effects since this post and again I'm doing work with doubles and clip cutting but unfortunately I cannot find the tool you are mentioning, David. The silhouette roto tool (unless it's a plug-in or something) doesn't seem to be in After Effects CS3. Is there another tool that can work...I tried all the matte options, however, I could not seem to get them to do any cutting in half or anything like that.