I think I'm doing this the "wrong" way
 

So I'm trying to get the simple editing technique of having multiples of the same person doing different things in one scene. I've tried the opacity trick where everybody looks like ghosts and I've also tried the cropping trick, but that leaves a faint line in the clip where it had been cropped.

What's the real way to do this? (I'm using FCE/FCP if it matters)


Thanks.

do you mean in like a split screen type of view? all you have to do is stack up all your clips in the timeline and turn on image and wireframe view. from there you can scale and re-position and crop them to fit on screen.

You're doing it the "right" way. The problem is, the lighting probably changed just slightly in whatever you were shooting. It only works when the lighting stays the same. You might be able to color correct it, but it works better if you just do it in a room with fixed lighting.

You could always try feathering the edges of the crop, so you dont get a harsh line?

Assuming you have a static identical background for all the footage. try SUPERIMPOSING one cropped image (with feathered edges) on top of another uncropped one, and NOT butting two cropped edges up to one another (to avoid the visible border).

Maybe you're doing that already!

yeah thanks guys... I totally forgot about feathering the edges.

Well, depending upon the complexity of your scene and the desired result as well as overlapping action, a preferred method for some would involve 'keying'.

Without overlapping action the split screen would likely work fine. Otherwise, if action does overlap, you might that if you have to use opacity filtering, elements in one layer might 'ghost' the target elements in other layers.

If the stuff is already shot and you need complex layering for the multiple elements, depending upon how much work you want to put into it or how precise you are looking your result to be, you can alway roto a matte for each target element, but that is a major PITA.

Good luck.