Split screen (video production)

An early example of split screen in Life of an American Fireman (1903)
Patty Duke in the twin roles of identical cousins, Patty and Cathy, in the TV show The Patty Duke Show, an effect achieved by split screen.

In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen's frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye. There may or may not be an explicit borderline. Until the arrival of digital technology, a split screen in films was accomplished by using an optical printer to combine two or more actions filmed separately by copying them onto the same negative, called the composite.

In filmmaking split screen is also a technique that allows one actor to appear twice in a scene. The simplest technique is to lock down the camera and shoot the scene twice, with one "version" of the actor appearing on the left side, and the other on the right side. The seam between the two splits is intended to be invisible, making the duplication seem realistic.[1][2][3]

  1. ^ "Duplicating Actors with a Split-Screen". mediacollege.com. Retrieved 2012-01-14.
  2. ^ "Split Screen in After Effects – It’s like looking in a mirror!". ittrainingtips.iu.edu. Retrieved 2012-01-14.
  3. ^ Grossman, Paul M. "Double Vision". Digital Producer Magazine (digitalproducer.com). Retrieved 2012-01-14.