I'm producing a short film in 2.35:1 aspect ratio (well, actually 16:9 with black bars top and bottom) -

There's a short sequence at the end where I need the screen to split into two with action happening in both screens simultaneously.

I'm looking for the best way to achieve this that looks good. Has anyone experienced trying this before with success? All my footage is 16:9 native, but even 16:9 doesn't fit twice into 2.35:1, so I am either going to have to crop my 16:9 native footage (which I can do), or play around with two 16:9 sequences in the 2.35:1 frame such that they overlap at the corners (ie. screen A top right, screen B bottom left)


In the above example though, I would have imagined there to be a lot of black, especially with my black pillar box mask top and bottom.

Anyone suggest a cool way of doing this? Also, how to border the two sequences?

Many thanks for any suggestions.

Frame each scene accordingly when you shoot it by engaging a center line on your monitor for an easy split in post.

Hi David,

Many thanks for the tip, although in my case, I have already shot the footage.

Perhaps I didn't explain it right, but what I'm after is what the best looking size and proportion of each window within the 2.35:1 frame could be. Suggestions how to proportion two 16:9 action screens within the 2.35:1 window!

If you have After Effects this is pretty straightforward. You start with a new composition that has the 2.35:1 pixel ratio (1920x817 if you're shooting HD) then import the two footage sequences as two separate layers then resize and position them to taste inside the comp.

Kris. The only person who can answer this is yourself, since only you know what you've shot and what the action is. That is probably the only indicator of what 'style' you should go for. If it was a random thing, I'd say 50:50 split, but I'm assuming you want to be more creative than that.

Hi folks,

Thank you for all your suggestions. In the end I couldn't go with a 50:50 split, it didn't look right, plus the action didn't suit it. Sometimes the action in one scene dictated more space than the other, then it would change. In the end, I chose to split it roughly 65:35 and switched it when the other scene became more important.

It was key to get it right, as the contest is 'parallel lines' and I wanted to physically show the parallel story going on in my short simultaneously.

To see the final 3-minute work, which was for a contest for Ridley Scott Associates and Philips 21:9 Promotion, you can view it here:

YouTube - Philips Cinema - Parallel Lines - Dead Awake, by Kris Koster (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMUmcrdU2mU)

Many kind thanks for your replies.

Kris

great job! You've got a great concept, why not expand and redesign it?

Sareesh -

It was only for a contest, but I would welcome coming back to split screen work in the future. It was fun to try.

The strange thing was - I hardly noticed the 65:35 split shifting to the other side!