Follow TV Tropes

Following

Double Vision

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/51.jpg

"The only reason it falls apart is because I happen to enter the same revolving door, and we do double takes at each other. (This is where film cheats. How the hell would he know what I'm gonna wear that day?)"
Larry Drake on his role in Darkman

Evil Twins! Princes and Paupers! Always Identical Twins! Identical Grandsons! Identical Strangers! Mirror Universes! Me's a Crowd! These and other nuisances all provide reasons why one actor might need to play two or more roles. Here's how they do it.

If there are a lot of scenes where the two characters spend time together or interact, a pair of identical twin actors is the simplest solution. The Mowry twins, the Heder twins (yes, there are two Napoleons Dynamite), the Feldman twins (Fanty and Mingo from Serenity), the Sklar brothers, the Olsen twins, the Sprouse twins, and the Phelps twins (Fred and George from Harry Potter) come to mind. For an existing character it gets more complex.

The most straightforward way to get two copies of a person in the frame is to use a stand-in and only shoot one face at a time, as in the Over the Shoulder shot.

A second, more complicated, but effective way is to use Split Screen, with no dividing line, and use the same camera position for both shots. It's hard to get perfect, and disallows any camera moves, but in the analog era it was the best thing going. The technical errors inherent in this are obvious enough, if the backgrounds fail to match up (due to a camera movement) or the actor's body crosses the line and disappears.

In the digital age, more complex special effects can be used to insert a copy of a person shot on Green Screen, in the same manner as Serkis Folk. The problems inherent in this are the same as for Serkis Folk, as the double is not present on set for his counterpart to act against.

To this day, for budget and acting reasons, the faceless stand-in is still used for the majority of shots. In addition, most episode plots in the above categories require that the two doubles share very little screen time.

Not to be confused with Single Malt Vision (a character sees double because of intoxication or other impairment).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Film — Animated 
  • Invoked in Toy Story 2, with many of the shots containing two Buzz Lightyears staged as if Split Screen was necessary. Especially notable when they're both shouting "I'm Buzz Lightyear!" at each other; in that shot, the background is made to look as if there's a seam between them.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Back to the Future
    • Back to the Future Part II: During production, this movie used this effect to allow Michael J. Fox to play all the characters at the dinner table; Industrial Light and Magic used a special robot controlled camera to allow camera movements while making sure that all the backgrounds lined up. It was also used in scenes where Biff Tannen and Doc Brown from the future met their 1955 selves, although not without a great deal of painting the frame (see the scene where Old Biff throws the book at Young Biff). The second film does a variation on the usual "split-screen" effects when the flying DMC-12 lands "behind" a streetlight for a perfect model-to-car transition.
    • Back to the Future Part III: This effect was used to allow Marty to talk to his ancestor, also played by Michael J. Fox. Keep a lookout for the shot in which the baby is handed off; its mother walks in front of the camera at just the right moment needed to see it actually change hands, but it is done pretty seamlessly and is hard to notice if you aren't looking for it.
  • Same deal with both of Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor films, wherein he plays the entire Klump family, and his unrelated 2007 film, Norbit.
  • Also sharing the above method was The Island (2005), whenever Lincoln and the man he was cloned from are in the same scene together; being clones, they are obviously played by the same guy. Also like the above films, it wasn't easy to accomplish, and Michael Bay even says during the commentary that he would "never do another clone movie" because of that.
  • Mary Poppins: This happens during the song "A Spoonful of Sugar", when Mary sings near the mirror, and the reflection echoes her lines, and then sings without her. This mirror gag is briefly repeated in Mary Poppins Returns.
  • Peter Sellers was a master of multiple roles on the big screen: He played three roles in Dr. Strangelove, three roles in The Mouse That Roared, and six roles in 1974's Soft Beds, Hard Battles. The effects used were mostly of the "only one in frame at a time" variety.
  • The Parent Trap, and at least one of its sequels, uses this to have Hayley Mills play two twins. Likewise in the remake with Lindsay Lohan.
  • The Jet Li martial arts movie The One climaxed in an extended fight scene between Jet Li's character Gabriel Law and his Alternate Universe Evil Twin Gabriel Yulaw.
  • In the classic British comedy film Kind Hearts and Coronets, Alec Guinness plays a staggering eight separate members of the D'Ascoyne family, one of whom is a woman. They very rarely appear on the screen at the same time — except for one painstakingly composed shot of the entire clan early in the movie.
  • Jeremy Irons pulled it off quite well in the creepyfest Dead Ringers (dir. David Cronenberg.)
  • Multiple copies of Michael Keaton are seen interacting throughout Multiplicity, a movie about a man who clones himself. Particularly impressive scenes include one in which all four versions of the protagonist are shaving in a large bathroom mirror, and one in which one version tosses a beer to another. Methods used include splicing together multiple takes of the scene, and digitally stitching Michael Keaton's face onto the head of a body double.
  • In Tim Burton's film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Deep Roy plays all the Oompa-Loompas - up to 100 of them in a single scene, performing coordinated song-and dance numbers. Hooray for CGI and a very patient Mr. Roy having to act out a single scene as many times as he is in it.
  • The film Ali G In Da House has Sacha Baron Cohen's characters Ali G and Borat meet at a party, using Over the Shoulder.
  • The Pumaman actually uses this not to have more than one Pumaman, but for Pumaman to do his "teleporting" trick by jumping out of one side of the screen and disappearing into or appearing from the seam.
  • In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the mimetic polyalloy T-1000 appears on screen disguised as Sarah Connor alongside the real Sarah, accomplished by having Linda Hamilton play the T-1000 while her twin sister, Leslie doubled as Sarah. Leslie was used again in a scene in the extended Special Edition version, wherein Sarah extracts the Terminator's CPU. The scene is mostly seen through reflections in a mirror: Linda and Arnold played the reflections, while Leslie matched Linda's movements precisely in the close foreground with an Arnold dummy. For another doubling scene with the T-1000 real twins were used. Particularly interesting because of the happenstance: Linda's being a twin was obviously not a factor in her original casting!
  • Used to remarkable effect in the 2009 science-fiction film Moon.
  • In Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest P. Worrell ends up trading places with Identical Stranger Felix Nash, a convicted crime lord. Both roles are played by Jim Varney, but since one is working at a bank and the other is in jail, the only time they really interact is during the movie's climax, where their final confrontation escalates into the absurd when Ernest is electrocuted and his bizarre electromagnetic properties cause him to levitate.
  • The Social Network takes a new approach via digital effects to portray the real-life Winklevoss twins. Though Armie Hammer played Cameron on set, and Josh Pence played Tyler, Hammer's face was digitally placed onto Pence's body in post-production so that the twins would look and sound alike. This is done so well, no one would suspect it wasn't two identical twin actors unless you told them what really happened. Unintentional Uncanny Valley like sensations have been reported, however. Not entirely perfect.
  • Used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 to do the seven Harrys scene. Daniel Radcliffe had to act out the scene seven times, doing an impression of each of the six characters who had turned into Harry as well as playing the real Harry. The scene where everyone changes into Harry was filmed as one long shot with the camera constantly moving.
  • Jim Dale plays three roles in Hot Lead and Cold Feet, occasionally appearing twice in a scene.
  • One of the earliest examples was the 1946 Film Noir The Dark Mirror, in which split screening was used to allow Olivia de Havilland to play twins.
  • A Stolen Life: Bette Davis played twins. Effective examples of Split Screen and Over the Shoulder shots.
  • Dead Ringer: Bette Davis played twins, with examples of Split Screen and Over the Shoulder shots.
  • Used in The Cat in the Hat during the cooking show parody with two Cats speaking to each other.
  • Done pretty well, for the most part, in The Son of the Sheik, in which Rudolph Valentino plays both Sheik Ahmed and his headstrong son Ahmed Jr. When older Ahmed puts his arm over younger Ahmed's shoulder, it's pretty convincing. The Split Screen line is quite obvious, however, in a scene where the two Ahmeds are swordfighting shoulder-to-shoulder.
  • In Shock Treatment, Cliff de Young plays both Brad Majors and Farley Flavors.
  • Big Business (1988) is a case of double Double Vision, with Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin each playing a set of identical twins who were mixed up at birth. No camera tricks were needed until the end of the film, when the two Bette-Lily pairs finally encounter each other.
  • Bicentennial Man: When Andrew meets Portia (played by Embeth Davidtz), he mistakes her for Little Miss, who shows up in the same scene (also played by Embeth Davidtz, but with ageing prosthetics). As Andrew is looking back and forth between the two women, Little Miss explains that Portia is her granddaughter. Once Andrew realizes that she's Lloyd's daughter, it explains the rudeness for him.
  • The Man in the Iron Mask: Both King Louis and his brother Philippe are played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and in one scene, Louis walks all around Philippe.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Sketch comedy programs with established characters will do this when two characters, played by the same actor, meet. Has been used in Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen and many others.
  • The split screen was a staple of 1960s sitcoms like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and Get Smart, where characters played opposite scheming cousins or evil doubles.
  • 3rd Rock from the Sun used Split Screen and Over the Shoulder shots for the three-episode arc with Dick's evil twin. Both techniques were used very obviously, but who cares?
  • The local butcher on All in the Family was enamoured with Edith, so when the show was nearing its close (before the switch to Archie Bunker's Place), there was an episode where he found a girlfriend who happened to be a dead ringer for Edith - and also played by Jean Stapleton. A lot of Over the Shoulder was used until the final scene where Edith and her lookalike chat in the kitchen - complete with a great reaction from the audience, who at this point where reacting to pre-taped episodes.
  • Both methods were used on All My Children whenever both Adam and Stuart Chandler (both played by David Canary) show up on screen.
  • One edition of The Arsenio Hall Show had Arsenio interviewing his fat rapper alter-ego, Chunky A.
  • At Home With Amy Sedaris cast Amy Sedaris in multiple roles, often resulting in the actress sharing the screen with herself.
  • Green screen and split screen setups are used extensively in the 2000s Battlestar Galactica, where it is not unusual for two or three copies of the same humanoid Cylon to be on screen at the same time.
  • Blackadder: In "Duel and Duality" from the third series, Blackadder and his mad cousin MacAdder appear on the screen together, both played by Rowan Atkinson.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • When Xander was split in two in "The Replacement", they had a convenient real-life twin to go with, but in "Dopplegangland" they had to use Split Screen and the stand-in. Including the shot where Vamp!Willow licks Willow's neck suggestively.
    • Also the First taking the form of Spike or Buffy to taunt their real life selves.
  • The Car 54, Where Are You? episode "A Man is Not an Ox" sees protagonists Toody and Muldoon acting more and more like each other, and a last-ditch effort to get them to start diverging involves setting up the unmarried Muldoon with fellow officer Nicholson's wife's cousin from North Dakota, whom none of the other officers have ever met, as his date for the annual precinct banquet. When she arrives, everyone is stunned to see that she looks almost exactly like Toody's wife Lucille (albeit with a dark wig)... as she is played by the same actress, Beatrice Pons. In shots featuring both characters, one is only ever seen from over the shoulder.
  • The Colbert Report has the "Formidable Opponent" segment, in which Colbert debates himself. This was originally done using Chroma Key, so that when the camera 'cuts to the other Stephen', he appears mirrored, in front of a different background and with a different coloured tie. The trick with this method lies in synchronising the actor's personality switch with the camera change. However, since the show isn't done live, recent shows appear to do the segment with two separately filmed sequences that are put together in editing. (You can tell because his tie is no longer identical except for the color, and they've used it for things like having one Colbert be drenched with water and the other not.)
  • Dad's Army did it once with Captain Mainwaring's brother. We only see them in the same place once and a slight positioning error causes the end of Captain Mainwaring's foot to vanish.
  • Used in an episode of Dengeki Sentai Changeman where the Monster of the Week is disguised as the heroine Sayaka. They used split screen when the two Sayakas meet face to face, then they used a mirror to have the two look at each other in a different camera angle. Due to the show being made in 1985, no-one complained about the dust on the mirror which can be spotted in a modern television.
  • Doctor Who:
    • In the classic series, the first five Doctors had at least one story in which they had a double. (The 1st and 4th had two such stories.) The 1st Doctor had an obvious double in some shots in "The Chase", and never met his double in "The Massacre". The 2nd only met his double in the climax of "The Enemy of the World" (split screen). In "The Android Invasion", the 4th had a double with a wig that didn't look right (more of a beehive instead of Tom Baker's Harpo Marx curls). In "Meglos", he only met his double at the end — Split Screen and Over the Shoulder. (Though another guy winds up holding the coats of both versions of him at the same time — a plot point.) The 5th Doctor had a scene with a split screen (but the asymmetrical lighting sold it). Companions have also had doubles occasionally.
    • In the revival, three of the Doctors have had a story with a double as well. The 9th's double in "Father's Day" was done with a simple greenscreen edit, whereas the 10th's double was done with some camera trickery in "Journey's End". The 11th's double in "The Almost People" was arguably the most complicated, with a similar-looking stand-in playing... whichever Doctor Matt Smith wasn't playing at the time. The crew would then RE-film the scene, with the two swapped. The result is uncanny. In a good way.
    • For the "Master race" in "The End of Time", Chroma Keys were used extensively except for long-distance crowd shots, where they simply had extras wearing prosthetic masks in the likeness of John Simm that reek of the Unintentional Uncanny Valley when seen up close (of course, they don't do close-ups of those in the episodes proper).
  • Minor Example: The closing credits of the second season of The Electric Company (1971) featured the main cast marching out of a door, first as themselves and then as their most popular character (Morgan Freeman with Easy Reader, Skip Hinnant with Fargo North, etc.). They actually used Green Screen for this, and a blooper is noticeable (Morgan Freeman briefly stepping on Jennifer of the Jungle). One episode in particular had a song number with Rita Moreno as three characters all at once singing/shouting her trademark "HEY YOU GUYS!". Green screen again.
  • F Troop adored this trope; because Larry Storch was hilarious with accents, he pulled double duty on no less than three occasions: as Agarn's renegade Mexican bandit cousin (El Diablo), his French-Canadian cousin (Lucky Pierre), and his Russian Cossack cousin (Agarnoff). Not to be left out, Forrest Tucker had an episode where he played Sergeant O'Rourke's meddling Irish father, and Ken Berry had one where he played a dangerous criminal, Kid Vicious, who happened to resemble the goody-two shoes Captain Parmenter.
  • Done on Friends whenever Lisa Kudrow had to play both Phoebe and twin sister Ursula. David Schwimmer also got a whole episode dedicated to this with "The One With Russ", in which Rachel dates a Ross doppelganger named Russ. As studio sitcoms rarely use this trope, Friends delighted in showing off the technique, with Kudrow and Schwimmer physically interacting with their other selves.
  • Smoothly used in Fringe, most notably in the fourth season's second episode. The two Olivias interact almost seamlessly with each other, and it's quite the spectacle.
  • Split screen was also used for an episode of Ghost Whisperer where a ghost's body is taken over by another ghost.
  • Gilligan's Island had three episodes where doubles of a castaway showed up on the island: one of Gilligan, one of Ginger, and one of Mr. Howell.
  • In a season four episode of Glee, Rachel has a conversation with her younger self.
  • The Split Screen version was used on the Good Eats episode on pickles. Host Alton Brown ("AB") made sweet, wholesome pickles on the left side of the kitchen, while his punkish biker-esque twin ("BA") made evil, spicy parallel pickles on the right side of the kitchen. In fact, Alton uses this a lot, commonly having one version working on something on a counter while another leans on the back of a nearby couch and explains what's going on, and is sometimes interrupted by a third that comes in to add more information.
  • The Good Place: "Janet(s)" has D'Arcy Carden playing all four human main characters, who, due to the properties of the location they're in, now all look like Janet. This was done via body doubles, re-shooting scenes with her in each part, and CGI. It culminates in a scene where Janet!Chidi and Janet!Eleanor kiss, which was done with the help of an intriguing prop.
  • Heroes had Milo Ventimiglia's character, Peter, interacting with an alternate future version of himself by using a combination of Over the Shoulder shots and editing together footage of the actor as both versions of his character.
  • On Highlander, Duncan had to fight his evil self in the episode "Deliverance". That used the Over The Shoulder technique.
  • A sketch from The Julie Andrews Hour had Julie Andrews interact with both Eliza Doolittle and Mary Poppins, culminating in the three Julies performing "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".
  • Kamen Rider Decade did it a couple of times, first in the Kamen Rider Kabuto Alternate Universe with a Worm imitating Tsukasa, then later on when both versions of Kotaro Minami (Black and Black RX) appear alongside one another untransformed (the second case ditches the acting for two when they transform, as it merely becomes a case of two stuntmen in different suits.).
  • The Kamen Rider Den-O movie Episode Yellow has Diend interacting with his past self. The quality of the green screen effect is dubious, as one of the two Kaitous hasn't properly been chroma-keyed and still has a faint aura of green around him - this is especially odd, since 1) Decade showed that they could do it well, and 2) a movie should logically have a higher SFX budget than a TV series.
  • Used in Knight Rider with the heroic Michael and his evil twin Garth.
  • This happens in the BBC TV adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Edmund is making his way to the Witch's house, a slightly transparent double of himself appears, and has a conversation with him about his forthcoming terrible deed. Edmund ends this conversation with "So, disappear!", and his double merges with his real self.
  • The Mama's Family episode "Mama's Cousin", with Vicki Lawrence playing both Mama and her cousin, uses this and Over the Shoulder scenes with Vicki's double. A bit more obvious than most examples, however, as Mama features mismatched lighting in the split-screen scenes, suggesting she was filmed separately in front of a green screen.
  • On Married... with Children, in the episode where Peg remodeled the bathroom, there's a scene with Al sitting on the couch talking to the ghost of his late father, both played by Ed O'Neill.
  • Misfits used this effect extensively whenever Rudy Too appeared alongside the original. Bizarrely, after several seasons of eschewing over-the-shoulder and doubles in favor of jarringly clumsy greenscreens, the final few episodes manage the effect almost seamlessly.
  • The episode of Mork & Mindy where Mork meets Robin Williams used both Split Screen and Over the Shoulder.
  • Parodied on Newhart. Michael produced a sitcom called "Seein' Double" starring Stephanie as twins and Dick as their father. It featured horrible wigs and incompetent split screens, including checkerboard floor tile that didn't come close to matching up.
  • Used whenever there are multiple clones in a scene in Orphan Black. All the clones are played by Tatiana Maslany.
  • The Patty Duke Show used the classic double-and-Over the Shoulder shot method for its entire run, with the occasional Split Screen for spice. (Trivia point: For many years, nobody knew who Patty Duke's double was; she never got screen credit and was apparently on the show's payroll with no explanatory notes. Nick at Nite searched for her at one point, but despite their pleas, she did not come forth. Several websites now identify her as Rita McLaughlin, who went on to become a soap opera actress.)
    • Parodied on the Roseanne episode "Shower the People You Love with Gifts": the two actresses who played Becky back and forth during the series, Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke, reenact the opening sequence of The Patty Duke Show shot-for-shot for the closing credits, complete with mirror routine and a poorly done split screen shot where both actresses lean over the dividing line, causing their limbs to vanish from view.
  • Power Rangers:
  • The Prisoner (1967): The episode "The Schizoid Man" uses Split Screen (with occasional seam problems) along with Over the Shoulder shots of Patrick McGoohan's stunt double.
  • In the Red Dwarf episode "Me2", split screens were used for the two Rimmers, along with other tricks (their room had twin beds instead of the usual bunks, done to avoid the logistical nightmare of one climbing past the other). At several points, Lister can be seen leaning heavily to one side to make the splitting possible. Split screens are used in at least ten Red Dwarf episodes in total, in order to have doubles of the cast.
  • Used in the pilot of Ringer, where Sarah Michelle Gellar plays twin main characters.
  • Done many times in Sliders, due to the nature of the series. When most of the cast would meet their alternate selves, a Split Screen was used. However, Cleavant Derricks' alternates were played by his twin brother.
  • In two episodes of Small Wonder — "The Bad Seedling" and "Hooray for Hollyweird!" — Tiffany Brissette played both Vicki and Vanessa. For these episodes, Lisa Perry was Brissette's double when Vicki and Vanessa had to interact onscreen.
  • This scene in Soap. Split screen is used very well - look for the spot where both Burt and his alien duplicate throw sandwiches into the same lunchbox.
  • Stargate SG-1 does this progressively more over time, reflecting advances in editing technology or possibly just a larger budget. In the season 1 episodes which feature duplicate characters — "Cold Lazarus" and "Tin Man" — the actual characters who are duplicated spend most of the episode out of the picture; in "Cold Lazarus", when O'Neill finally ends up in the same room as the alien duplicating him, we get a minute or two of over-the-shoulder shots, but the alien almost immediately switches to duplicating his son instead. By season 9, the writers seemed to almost be going out of their way to come up with scenarios that meant putting several characters played by the same actor onscreen simultaneously, with both "The Ripple Effect" and the entire Baal-cloning arc.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • "Time Squared" doubles Patrick Stewart with an obvious stand-in and some less-than-perfect split-screen shots (eyelines, mainly).
    • In "Brothers", Brent Spiner plays Data, his evil "twin" Lore, and their creator, Noonian Soong. Data and Lore are never in the same shot (though there is a very tricky scene using a sliding green screen in which Data puts down a glass and Lore picks it up), but both are often in the same shot with Soong.
    • "Second Chances" features a few Chroma Key shots to allow the two Rikers to interact, in addition to stand-ins and split-screens. The creators were especially proud of a shot where Riker 1 walks around Riker 2, which they accomplished with nothing more than some Chroma Key work and running a flag across a light.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had Major Kira and Intendant Kira interacting.
  • Star Trek: Voyager:
    • In "Life Line", the holographic Doctor is transmitted back to the Alpha Quadrant to treat Dr. Zimmerman, the man who created him. The two look identical (which turns out to be an important plot point) and so are played by the same actor. There's even a scene where the two interact closely, including bumping into each other, during a medical scan.
    • An earlier Voyager episode, "The Swarm", similarly has the Doctor interacting with a hologram of Dr. Zimmerman in a holodeck environment.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series, of course, has "The Enemy Within", which mostly used editing tricks and (very obvious) stand-ins for the scenes with the two Kirks. Also used in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" when Dr. Korby creates an android replica of Kirk.
  • Supernatural:
    • Used in the episode "In My Time of Dying" when Dean is both moving around as a spirit while his near-dead body is lying in a few feet away in a hospital bed.
    • Similarly, in "The Man Who Knew Too Much", Sam interacts with two avatars of his memories of the time he spent in Hell, both of whom are also played by Jared Padalecki.
    • In the episode "Slash Fiction", the Winchesters fight two Leviathans who are impersonating them.
  • Used on The Vampire Diaries for the scenes where Elena and her evil vampire doppelgänger Katherine meet.
  • In the Wishbone episode "The Prince and the Pooch," the split-screen effect was used with the titular dog. The after-episode short showed how they managed to have Wishbone in two places at once.
  • The Young Ones: In an episode where Neil says repeatedly "We sow the seed, nature grows the seed, we eat the seed", Vyvyan buries Neil, and in the dead of night, three Neils come out of the ground.
    Neil: Anyone watching that must have thought it was a negative reality inversion.

    Music Videos 
  • Michael Jackson's solo breakout hit, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Mid-way through the video, Jackson appears on screen not just twice at a time, but three times.
  • Sergey Lazarev's solo cover of Notre-Dame de Paris's "Belle" on the talent show Phantom of the Opera has him play Quasimodo, Frollo and Phoebus all at once, and this is managed purely by costume: he'd wear a hooded cloak for Quasimodo part, after which he'd remove it to reveal a costume that's Frollo on the right half and Phoebus on the left half. Which half would be turned to the audience corresponds with which character singing the part, then he'd face the audience completely during the final chorus, which is sung by all three.
  • Daler Mehndi is the only person present in the video for "Tunak Tunak Tun", as the concept is that versions of him from each of the four elements have come together to party. This was also a middle finger at critics who claimed the only reason his music was popular was because of the attractive women in his videos. "Tunak Tunak Tun" did very well, disproving this.
  • In Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", both the Unlucky Childhood Friend and the slutty cheerleader are played by Taylor, with different hair color and makeup. They never appear in the same shot.
  • Used in Britney Spears video for Lucky, being Britney!Lucky and Britney!Guardian.
  • Several of Lindsey Stirling's videos, e.g. "On the Floor Take Three", feature multiple versions of herself dancing or playing the violin, usually using split screens over several takes so it appears she has clones even if they're dressed differently.
  • Paul McCartney's 1980 video, "Coming Up" features him playing 10 roles as musicians in a band. His wife, Linda, plays the two backup singers.
  • Christina Aguilera's video for "Candyman" features blond, brunette and redhead versions of herself.
  • David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging" features him as a singer, then shows him as three female backup singers, using green screen.
  • The Go-Go's "Turn To You" featured the band members in two roles, each one playing a male and a female role.
  • Regina Spektor's video for "Better" is populated solely by Regina clones.
  • The video for Outkast's "Hey Ya!" features AndrĂ© 3000, similar to the Paul McCartney example above, simultaneously playing every single member (8 total, including the three backup singers) of the fictional band "The Love Below" in a pastiche of The Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
  • The Archies: The live-action video for "Sugar, Sugar" has three copies of Ron Dante playing different instruments.

    Video Games 
  • Comes into play for Episode 4 of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, when Dangeresque Too meets his robotic duplicate, Uzi Bazooka. There's a very obvious split screen effect when the two converse and the fight between them is done with Strong Sad dressed up in a Homestar outfit even more obvious than the one used in the first episode. Of course, this is all done intentionally for the Stylistic Suck effect that is one of Strong Bad's home movies. It was apparently surprisingly difficult to achieve the proper effect, since a video game would normally just place both models in the same scene.

    Web Animation 
  • Played for Laughs in Homestar Runner on several occasions. A notable example being their video for the They Might Be Giants song "Experimental Film" where Strong Sad plays himself and Death in a horribly misaligined shot, which is further ruined when Homestar leans into the seam.

    Web Original 
  • That Dude in the Suede uses it to show him talking to himself or illustrate gags.
  • The Spoony Experiment manages this in triplicate during Spoony's review of "The Clones of Bruce Lee". The movie is reviewed by a normal Spoony clone, a Dr. Insano Spoony clone, and a bum Spoony clone reminiscent of Chester A. Bum from Bum Reviews, all sitting next to each other on a couch.
    • In the commentary, Noah points out the flaws in the effect, mentioning that he pulled the classic blunder of having an uncovered window in the background which screwed up the lighting; despite his remarks, the effect is still pretty good considering it's one guy on a shoestring budget.
    • Also done briefly in The Nostalgia Critic's Top 11 Nostalgic Mindfucks episode - also numbering three total Critics, though it was a much shorter shot.
    • In the same way, Kylle Kallgren used it as an effect during his video review of The Man Who Fell to Earth, for a few seconds only.
  • In The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of an NES Licensed Game based on A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Nerd notes that the game has a four-player mode, but notes that the only way you'd find enough people willing to play it would be to clone yourself. Naturally, the next shot is of four Nerd clones playing the game while the original stands behind them. Freddy Krueger eventually gets fed up with the way the Nerds are treating his game and attacks them, and in the final battle, it's done again when Freddy makes himself look like the Nerd.
    • The Mega Man Games episode has the Nerd of 2016 going back to the past and interacting with himself from his Independence Day (PS1) review from 2007, the aforementioned Nightmare review from 2006, and his original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES) review from 2004.
    • In the Cinemassacre's review of the 2009 Ghostbusters game, the Nerd and James Rolfe himself appear side by side for a brief moment at the start of the video before James tells the Nerd that he doesn't need him for the review because the game is not bad.
    • In another episode of AVGN, Board James shows up on the couch next to the Nerd to talk about board games based on video games.
  • Done all the time in videos by Natalie Tran, aka CommunityChannel on Youtube, where she is usually the only cast member of her skits.
  • Similarly, WhatsUpELLE on Youtube is a pro at this, often having two "clones" of herself costarring with her in her videos.
  • During the Mechakara saga on Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara and Mechakara rarely (if ever) share the screen. In the final battle, however, Linkara, the Ninja-Style Dancer, and '90s Kid are all on-screen at once. Harvey Finevoice is present, but to avoid having to make Lewis play four characters at once, he's on a different angle.
    • During the Entity arc, there's an absolutely seamless shot of Linkara walking around the Entity disguised as '90s Kid.
  • Duet with Myself
  • Matt Guion has a "Books Vs Movies Reviews" series where he plays two personas: Matt who talks about the original book, and the Hatter who talks about The Film of the Book and wears a variety of nice hats. The series initially avoids showing Matt and Hatter in the same shot with them always being in different locations, until the Animal Farm review where split screen editing is used to show them together for the first time. Matt even lampshades it by pointing out to Hatter that they've never been in the same frame before and the two of them gazing with awe at the camera and then talking during another conspicious in-the-same-frame scene at the start of the next review about how they'll have to get used to being two separate people.
  • Most of Anna Akana's videos have an entire cast of... herself in different outfiits.
  • In the first videos of her Web Series Insopportabilmente Donna, the French-Italian YouTuber Tess Masazza often played multiple roles at once.
  • In the Shut Up & Sit Down review of 6 Nimmt, there's a scene where Quinns is playing the game with three other Quinns and one of them angrily flings a glass of water into the original Quinns' face after he gets screwed over. The voiceover then says, "Well, that was a technically impressive joke! How do we do it?" and then it's shown that they did it by replacing "Quingles" with a friend dressed up in the same clothes for the shot where "Quingles" flings the water at Quinn since he conveniently happens to be standing up with his head outside of the camera shot at that time.
  • German actress Sandra Jessica Forster often films scenes of herself arguing with the voices in her head - usually playing at least three characters at once. In the first, they are all sitting at different points on a long couch. And in others, they are either against a wall or a black background.
  • CinemaSins uses Split Screen for the Conversations with Myself about Movies videos, with Jeremy, well, talking to himself about movies.

    Western Animation 
  • The Split Screen version was parodied in the "Spookyfish" episode of South Park, when Evil Cartman was standing next to his counterpart. Visual errors were intentionally introduced at center-screen, despite the fact that the effect is totally unnecessary in animation.
  • DuckTales (2017): The split screen parody version was seen in the Show Within a Show Darkwing Duck when Darkwing encounters an evil lookalike of him. It's particularly noticeable since part of the hat on one of them is lost in the split. In this case, it's because in-universe, the show is both live-action and about two decades old, suggesting that the show's makers hadn't quite mastered the art of the technique at the time.
  • The split screen parody was also used twice in the Class of 3000 final episode "Two to Tango" when Sunny and Mila scold their students on the stage until the line turns out to be a board pushed by a school janitor. The second time the students were in the cafe sitting on tables and the line turns out to be an umbrella pulled by a man.


 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Two for One Challenge

In Tu Cara Me Suena's Two for One challenges, a contestant has to impersonate two artists in the same performance, with the two parts being edited together. Here we see season 5 contestant Juan Munoz playing Joan Manuel Serrat and Joaquin Sabina simultaneously.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (1 votes)

Example of:

Main / DoubleVision

Media sources:

Report