Cloning yourself in Premiere Pro

[David Gogi]

I make piano videos for Youtube, and I have this idea of playing with 4 hands, so basically cloning my hands. There are some tutorials explaining it, but they emphasize that clones shouldn't overlap. The basic principle is the same background and just making a split screen. However, my hands will absolutely overlap, and even though they said it's much harder to do , I really want to make it work. It should look something like what's going on in "Chop Suey" by "System of a Down". Any tips would be appreciated.

[Mike Dziennik]

You will probably need to do a fair bit of masking and rotoscoping. After Effects might be more appropriate; it's worth looking at the rotobrush tool.

[salvo34]

hope you know a bit about photography and lighting etc.

I have two reactions to imagining what you want to do.

solution 1: play the piano with another person so you have four hands playing same keyboard.

solved.

solution 2: lock off the camera like it's in cement .... and shoot two shots....one with one pair of hands and one with other set of hands ( since you don't have 4 hands ).

Now ( since camera is locked off the piano is solid and only hands are moving ( and keys being pressed down ) put both clips on top of each other and adjust levels so you can see the hands as 'ghost like' action, basically going through each other when they cross... but still able to see them ( due to your nice lighting ).

good luck

anything else is impossible for you.

[salvo34]

p.s.

no negative vibes intended.... a lot of imagined shots just can't be done and have to be re-imagined to solve problems... happens more often then most people think.

: )