Hey guy’s, whats up.
My name is Serge, and welcome back to my channel.
In this video, you’re going to learn to how add simple,
and advanced split screens to your project,
mostly done using the tools built right into Final Cut Pro.
The only extra you’ll need is an adjustment layer plugin,
which, if you have Motion 5
you can easily make yourself, or if you don’t,
you can download it for free off my website.
The simplest way to add a split screen
to your project is by using the Trim tool.
Select your two clips you want to use for this effect,
add them to your timeline,
and layer them above each other.
With your top clip selected,
open the inspector window,
and use one of the crop sliders to trim off half your clip.
If you want it split right in the middle,
you have to do a little bit of math.
In my example,
the project resolution is set to 1920 by 1080,
so if I want the clips split down the middle,
I just divide 1920 by 2, and enter 960.
This cuts off exactly half of my top clip,
for a split screen divided exactly down the middle.
Nice and easy.
The problem with this way of doing it though,
is if you need to re-frame your clips,
while keeping the split right down the middle,
it’s not exactly easy.
Let’s take a look at a better way of doing this.
Just like before, add your two clips to your timeline,
and layer them above each other.
Select your top clip, and press V to disable it for now.
Open the titles and generators browser,
navigate to your adjustment layer,
and drag and drop it down into your timeline between the two clips.
Ripple trim it to the same length as your clip.
Select the adjustment layer, and in the inspector,
use the Crop adjustment to Trim off half of your clip.
Select the clip under your adjustment layer,
and use the transform tool to re-frame your clip to focus on your subject.
Click Done.
Select your adjustment layer clip,
and the command click the clip under it to select them both,
and combine them into a compound clip
with the keyboard shortcut Option G.
Re-enable your top clip,
add another adjustment layer above it,
and trim off the opposite half of your adjustment layer.
Use the transform tool to re-frame the clip
under your adjustment layer, and click Done.
Select both your clips, and once again,
combine them into a compound clip.
At first, this doesn’t look much different than our previous example,
but here’s the difference.
If you need to re-frame one of your clips,
you double click on the compound clip
to open it up in a separate timeline,
select your video clip,
and use the transform tool to move it around.
Once done, click the back arrow under the viewer
to go back to your project.
Let’s take a look at another example,
this time displaying three clips on screen at the same time.
We’ll set it up so the first clip takes up half the screen,
and the other two clips split the other half.
Layer your clips in the timeline,
and disable the top two clips.
Add an adjustment layer above your first clip,
and ripple trim it to the same length.
With the adjustment layer selected,
use the trim tool to trim off the right have of the clip by 960 pixels.
Re-frame your clip if needed,
and combine it with the adjustment layer
into a compound clip.
Select the middle clip in your timeline,
and re-enable it by pressing V on your keyboard.
Add an adjustment layer,
and trim off the left half.
We want this clip in the bottom corner,
so we’ll trim off the top half of whats left.
Out project is 1080 pixels tall,
so we’ll trim off half of that from the top.
Select your clip under the adjustment layer,
and use the transform tool to get the framing you want.
Combine these into a compound clip.
Do the same to the top clip in your timeline,
but this time, for the last step trim off the bottom by 540 pixels.
When you combine these two clips into a compound clip,
the clips underneath become visible,
and you get this cool split screen with three clips.
Now, the Crop tool is great for vertical and horizontal trimming,
but what if you want to split your clips at an angle?
This isn’t much harder, but this time,
instead of using the Crop tool, we’ll use a mask.
Layer your clips in the timeline,
disable the top clip,
and add an adjustment layer above your first clip.
Open the effects browser,
and add a drop mask to your adjustment layer.
Add control points in the viewer
to roughly where you want the clips to split.
To make this symmetrical,
we’ll adjust these in the inspector.
In the video inspector,
click the disclosure triangle besides control points
to see and adjust the exact placing.
This is our first control point, and as you can see,
if we click and drag it,
the values beside control point one change.
Let’s set this one close to where we want it,
and to make things simpler,
change the X value in the inspector to the closest round number.
For the Y value, we want it right on the edge of the clip,
so 1080 divided by 2 gives us 540.
The reason we have to divide it by two,
is everything is calculated from the anchor point,
which is right in the middle of the frame.
For control point 2, we’ll enter 960 for the X Value,
and 540 for the Y value.
Since out anchor point is in the middle,
anything above it and to the right
will be positive values,
and below and to the left of the anchor point
will be negative.
Since our third control point is below the anchor point,
but still to the right of it,
enter 960 for the X Value,
and negative 540 for the Y Value.
The last control point is a bit different.
We want the split to be symmetrical,
so the X Value has to be the same as Control Point 1,
but to have it on the left side,
we need a negative number.
So, enter negative 300 for the X value,
and negative 540 for the Y.
This makes the split between the clips perfectly symmetrical.
If necessary, re-frame your video clip,
and combine these into a compound clip.
Do the same to the top clip,
adding your mask on the opposite side of the screen.
Make sure to use the same values as the first clip.
When you combine your top clip
with the adjustment layer into a compound clip,
the bottom clip becomes visible,
for a perfectly symmetrical diagonal split screen effect.
This is just one of many benefits of using adjustment layers.
By trimming, or adding a mask to the adjustment layer,
instead of the clip itself,
you’re to free to modify,
or even change the video clip,
without affecting the split screen effect.
And, if you have Motion 5,
you can do the same thing
and save it as an effect preset for future use.
If you’re interested in learning how to do this in Motion,
let me know in the comments below,
and I can do another tutorial on that.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you back here next week.