Split Screen Filming Techniques

In film and video production, split screen filming is used to show complimentry or contrasting events taking places alongside one another, this could be detailing events taking place in different times, locations, or to different characters. The screen is split (usually down the middle, but a variety of arrangements can be used), with the alternate clips playing alongside each other.

Prior to the 1990s, before advances in digital technologies, a split screen was created using an optical printer using two video clips filmed seperately, which were copied onto the same negative, called the composite.

 
NOTABLE USES OF SPLIT SCREEN

Life of an American Fireman	1903
Suspense	1913
Napoléon	1927
Pillow Talk	1959
To Be Alive!	1964
Chelsea Girls	1966
Grand Prix	1966
A Place to Stand	1967
In the Labyrinth	1967
Charly	1968
The Thomas Crown Affair	1968
The Boston Strangler	1968
Airport	1970
Dionysus in '69	1970
Multiple Sidosis	1970
Woodstock	1970
Sisters	1973
Wicked, Wicked	1973
Phantom of the Paradise	1974
Carrie	1976
Dressed to Kill	1980
Blow Out	1981
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid	1987
Wall Street	1987
The Bonfire of the Vanities	1990
Boogie Nights	1997
Jackie Brown	1997
"Closing Time"	1998
Snake Eyes	1998
"Triangle"	1998
The Virgin Suicides	1999
Requiem for a Dream	2000
Snatch	2000
Timecode	2000
24	2001-2010
Femme Fatale	2002
The Rules of Attraction	2002
Kill Bill	2003
Hulk	2003
Sexual Dependency	2003
Sideways	2004
Conversations with Other Women	2005
The Tracey Fragments	2007
(500) Days of Summer	2009
127 Hours	2010