vertical split screen at DVinfo.net

Joseph Ivey · May 17th, 2005, 01:57 PM

I am trying to do a split screen in FCP that splits the screen from top to bottom, and not side to side. I looked for an answer and all I founf was to use a Horizontal wipe and stop it half wat but that is for a split screen from left to right like two people talking to one another on the phone. I am looking to take two wide ladscape shots and split the screen so one is on top of the other. Any suggestions?

Boyd Ostroff · May 17th, 2005, 02:06 PM

Not really sure what you're doing, but this should be pretty simple. Create two tracks. Set the canvas to show wireframe+image. On track 1 point the mouse at the image, hold the shift key down, and drag the image downwards until the top is at the middle of the screen. On track 2 do the opposite, drag the image upwards until its bottom is center screen.

Of course this all depends on how the footage on each track was originally shot and composed. You might need to get into some matting to make it work.

Joseph Ivey · May 17th, 2005, 02:46 PM

I am trying to take two video clips and show them at the same time in split screen where the split goes horizontally and not vertically like in movies when you see someone get a phone call, it squeezes them in next to one another. I am trying to do this and still keep the original image. I don't want to have to clip anything.

Boyd Ostroff · May 17th, 2005, 02:53 PM

Well the part I don't understand is how will you fit both images in that format without chopping them down? Or do you want to just zoom them smaller so you have a black background with a little picture above another little picture?

If so then that's trivial also. Create two tracks and use the wireframe+image view again. Grab the handle in one of the image corners and drag inward until the image is half it's original size. Now drag the image on track one to the top of the frame and the image on track two to the bottom.

Joseph Ivey · May 17th, 2005, 03:01 PM

I would like to zoom them smaller with a black background and a little bit of space to separate the two images. If at all possible I would like to keep the entire image. What I plan to do, if this helps, is to have a wide shot of two people walking down the sidewalk. One is walking to towards the right and one to the left but the way the shot is composed they are facing each other, just not in the same shot. Any ideas?

Brooks Bennett · May 17th, 2005, 04:32 PM

http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/indexflash.htm

DH Box is the most awesome plugin to do what you are looking to do. Worth its weight in post production gold! Hope this solves the problem!

Can't believe it is only 10 bucks. Pretty insane...

Boyd Ostroff · May 17th, 2005, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph Ivey

I would like to zoom them smaller with a black background

Have you tried my suggestion? It really should be very easy to do without any plug-ins...

Joseph Ivey · May 17th, 2005, 06:05 PM

yeah I have but it seems to want to crop part of the picture rather than just shrinking it down to to the size that I want for it. Is there something else I can do?

Boyd Ostroff · May 17th, 2005, 08:07 PM

Joseph, I'm happy to help but I get the feeling you may not have yet learned some of the FCP basics. It would be a good idea to read through the manual...

I just tried quickly, and I can easily do what you describe. Perhaps I wasn't specific enough? Lets call the clip on the top "A" and "B" for the bottom one. Do this:

1. Create two empty video tracks in your sequence

2. Drop clip A onto track v1 on the timeline

3. Drop clip B onto track v2 on the timeline

4. On the timeline, double-click anywhere on track v2; clip B opens in the viewer

5. In the viewer window, choose "image+wireframe" mode.

6. Click and hold the mouse button while pointing to one of the white dots in any corner of the blue rectangle around the image.

7. While holding the mouse button down, drag towards the center. The image will get smaller and smaller. Stop when you like the way it looks. You will see a checkerboard pattern all around it.

8. Release the mouse button. Now point in the middle of the image, hold the mouse down and drag upwards to position the small rectangle in the upper half of the screen.

9. At this point you will see a little rectangle with clip B on track v2 superimposed over the fullscreen image of clip A on track v1.

10. Double click anywhere on track v1 in the timeline, clip A will open in the viewer.

11. Shrink the image as described above.

12. Now drag the image to the bottom half of the screen as described above.

You now should have what you want. If the two clips aren't sync' ed the way you want then drag one of them either forward or backwards on the timeline as needed.

Sorry, I don't think I can get any more specific than this. Have you considered picking up one of the many good third party books on FCP? When I was first learning I found a few of them very helpful.

Joseph Ivey · May 18th, 2005, 01:07 PM

to be honest I have not read all of the manual, and don't intend to considering it is four volumes. I will probably wind up reading it all eventually as I look through it when I have a question like this. I apologize for the miscommunication, i understood your instructions the first time, and tried it and it works and I now know how to do it, but it tends to crop parts of the picture and that is not what I am looking for although I found that you can crop using the motion settings and fiddle with the bottom and top slides. I thank you for your help, but I am looking to shrink the whole picture so there is no cropping at all, but if there is no other way I can always frame it so i can crop out needless space later.

Boyd Ostroff · May 18th, 2005, 01:36 PM

Hmm, I don't really understand. I tried an experiment using the exact steps I posted above. No cropping whatsoever, There is one complete little picture above the other. You must be doing something differently...

Boyd Ostroff · May 18th, 2005, 01:52 PM

Here's a screenshot of my test. I used the EIA resolution chart and an NTSC overscan test chart as the two clips. These both make it easy to see that no cropping is taking place. Of course you might make the two images different sizes or arrange them differently as desired. But it works for me, nothing is cropped. Maybe this isn't what you're after?

http://greenmist.com/misc/screen.jpg

Joseph Ivey · May 18th, 2005, 01:53 PM

yeah, I got it now. I don't know what I was doing wrong but I got it now. thanks for your help. That is what I am after, although I see now that with out a plug in or cropping the image there is no way to keep the clip the same length from left to right and just squeeze it down some from top to bottom to get what I want.

Harikrishnan Ponnurangam · May 22nd, 2005, 09:48 PM

Boyd,

I followd your instructions it worked well. But when playing the sequence why i'm not hearing the audio. I just hear only beep sound?

Is there anything i'm doing wrong?

Hari

Boyd Ostroff · May 23rd, 2005, 08:09 AM

The beeping sound means your audio must be rendered. This could be caused by a couple things. Is the audio taken from a CD? Or maybe you have the audio tracks from both clips playing at the same time? I think either of these scenarios will require FCP to render the audio, which can be done with the "render all" command.

May 17th, 2005, 01:57 PM	#1
Joseph Ivey Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Nashville Posts: 89	vertical split screen I am trying to do a split screen in FCP that splits the screen from top to bottom, and not side to side. I looked for an answer and all I founf was to use a Horizontal wipe and stop it half wat but that is for a split screen from left to right like two people talking to one another on the phone. I am looking to take two wide ladscape shots and split the screen so one is on top of the other. Any suggestions?

May 17th, 2005, 03:01 PM	#5
Joseph Ivey Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Nashville Posts: 89	I would like to zoom them smaller with a black background and a little bit of space to separate the two images. If at all possible I would like to keep the entire image. What I plan to do, if this helps, is to have a wide shot of two people walking down the sidewalk. One is walking to towards the right and one to the left but the way the shot is composed they are facing each other, just not in the same shot. Any ideas? Last edited by Joseph Ivey; May 17th, 2005 at 04:32 PM.

May 17th, 2005, 06:05 PM	#8
Joseph Ivey Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Nashville Posts: 89	yeah I have but it seems to want to crop part of the picture rather than just shrinking it down to to the size that I want for it. Is there something else I can do? Last edited by Joseph Ivey; May 17th, 2005 at 06:34 PM.

May 18th, 2005, 01:52 PM	#12
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	reality check Here's a screenshot of my test. I used the EIA resolution chart and an NTSC overscan test chart as the two clips. These both make it easy to see that no cropping is taking place. Of course you might make the two images different sizes or arrange them differently as desired. But it works for me, nothing is cropped. Maybe this isn't what you're after? http://greenmist.com/misc/screen.jpg

May 22nd, 2005, 09:48 PM	#14
Harikrishnan Ponnurangam Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: St.Louis, USA Posts: 145	It worked but what is beep sound? Boyd, I followd your instructions it worked well. But when playing the sequence why i'm not hearing the audio. I just hear only beep sound? Is there anything i'm doing wrong? Hari

May 17th, 2005, 02:06 PM	#2
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	Not really sure what you're doing, but this should be pretty simple. Create two tracks. Set the canvas to show wireframe+image. On track 1 point the mouse at the image, hold the shift key down, and drag the image downwards until the top is at the middle of the screen. On track 2 do the opposite, drag the image upwards until its bottom is center screen. Of course this all depends on how the footage on each track was originally shot and composed. You might need to get into some matting to make it work.

May 17th, 2005, 02:46 PM	#3
Joseph Ivey Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Nashville Posts: 89	I am trying to take two video clips and show them at the same time in split screen where the split goes horizontally and not vertically like in movies when you see someone get a phone call, it squeezes them in next to one another. I am trying to do this and still keep the original image. I don't want to have to clip anything.

May 17th, 2005, 02:53 PM	#4
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	Well the part I don't understand is how will you fit both images in that format without chopping them down? Or do you want to just zoom them smaller so you have a black background with a little picture above another little picture? If so then that's trivial also. Create two tracks and use the wireframe+image view again. Grab the handle in one of the image corners and drag inward until the image is half it's original size. Now drag the image on track one to the top of the frame and the image on track two to the bottom.

May 17th, 2005, 04:32 PM	#6
Brooks Bennett Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 28	http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/indexflash.htm DH Box is the most awesome plugin to do what you are looking to do. Worth its weight in post production gold! Hope this solves the problem! Can't believe it is only 10 bucks. Pretty insane...

May 17th, 2005, 08:07 PM	#9
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	Joseph, I'm happy to help but I get the feeling you may not have yet learned some of the FCP basics. It would be a good idea to read through the manual... I just tried quickly, and I can easily do what you describe. Perhaps I wasn't specific enough? Lets call the clip on the top "A" and "B" for the bottom one. Do this: 1. Create two empty video tracks in your sequence 2. Drop clip A onto track v1 on the timeline 3. Drop clip B onto track v2 on the timeline 4. On the timeline, double-click anywhere on track v2; clip B opens in the viewer 5. In the viewer window, choose "image+wireframe" mode. 6. Click and hold the mouse button while pointing to one of the white dots in any corner of the blue rectangle around the image. 7. While holding the mouse button down, drag towards the center. The image will get smaller and smaller. Stop when you like the way it looks. You will see a checkerboard pattern all around it. 8. Release the mouse button. Now point in the middle of the image, hold the mouse down and drag upwards to position the small rectangle in the upper half of the screen. 9. At this point you will see a little rectangle with clip B on track v2 superimposed over the fullscreen image of clip A on track v1. 10. Double click anywhere on track v1 in the timeline, clip A will open in the viewer. 11. Shrink the image as described above. 12. Now drag the image to the bottom half of the screen as described above. You now should have what you want. If the two clips aren't sync' ed the way you want then drag one of them either forward or backwards on the timeline as needed. Sorry, I don't think I can get any more specific than this. Have you considered picking up one of the many good third party books on FCP? When I was first learning I found a few of them very helpful.

May 18th, 2005, 01:07 PM	#10
Joseph Ivey Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Nashville Posts: 89	to be honest I have not read all of the manual, and don't intend to considering it is four volumes. I will probably wind up reading it all eventually as I look through it when I have a question like this. I apologize for the miscommunication, i understood your instructions the first time, and tried it and it works and I now know how to do it, but it tends to crop parts of the picture and that is not what I am looking for although I found that you can crop using the motion settings and fiddle with the bottom and top slides. I thank you for your help, but I am looking to shrink the whole picture so there is no cropping at all, but if there is no other way I can always frame it so i can crop out needless space later.

May 18th, 2005, 01:36 PM	#11
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	Hmm, I don't really understand. I tried an experiment using the exact steps I posted above. No cropping whatsoever, There is one complete little picture above the other. You must be doing something differently...

May 18th, 2005, 01:53 PM	#13
Joseph Ivey Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Nashville Posts: 89	yeah, I got it now. I don't know what I was doing wrong but I got it now. thanks for your help. That is what I am after, although I see now that with out a plug in or cropping the image there is no way to keep the clip the same length from left to right and just squeeze it down some from top to bottom to get what I want.

May 23rd, 2005, 08:09 AM	#15
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,801	The beeping sound means your audio must be rendered. This could be caused by a couple things. Is the audio taken from a CD? Or maybe you have the audio tracks from both clips playing at the same time? I think either of these scenarios will require FCP to render the audio, which can be done with the "render all" command.