How to Make a Split-Screen Reel from Two Videos

To make a split-screen Reel in Studio, add both clips, select the one with the speaker, Shift-click the reference clip and click Split screen. The speaker becomes the bottom picture on V1, the reference becomes the top picture on V2, muted and aligned to the start. Sound and captions come from V1; the export is a free MP4.

What does the tested split screen look like?

A split screen shows two videos at the same time, each in its own box. A sequence shows them one after another. Studio keeps the main sequence on V1 and puts clips that play over it on V2.

The left side is a frame from the downloaded MP4 at 4.5 seconds; the right side is a Studio screenshot. The bottom clip is a ten-second excerpt of a selfie-style talk, and the top is a ten-second garden clip. Both are CC0 test footage by their uploaders (talk clip, garden clip). The talk's original carries a platform watermark, so we framed it out. The garden clip had no sound, so we gave it a synthetic voice to see which audio survives.

You need a desktop or phone browser, a free Google sign-in for Studio and two local videos. Nothing is uploaded: media stays in the browser tab. Modisign publishes this guide and sells Pro; this example used a free account.

How do you stack two clips, step by step?

1. Import both clips. Open Studio and pick both files, the speaker first: in an empty timeline, picked files join V1 in the order you pick them. Files you import later wait in the Media bin, where each clip's plus button adds them. In a half-height box, a landscape clip loses its left and right edges in Fill mode.
2. Select the pair. Click the speaker on V1, then Shift-click the reference. The first clip stays the active one. The Edit tab now offers Split screen.
3. Click Split screen. One undo step makes the active clip Bottom on V1 and the other Top on V2, muted and aligned to the active clip. The hint line says exactly that. Swap boxes appears afterwards.
4. Reframe each box. Select one clip and drag it in Program to move its crop in Fill mode. A drag lowered the vertical centre from 0.50 to 0.36, which showed the upper part of the picture and moved the watermark out of the box. The exported frame uses a smaller move, 0.45, so the speaker's chin stays above the caption.
5. Set the top clip's start if needed. Select the V2 clip and type a value under Start. We typed 1.5: the top box stayed black for 1.5 seconds and the total grew from 10 to 11.5 seconds. Undo restored 0.
6. Generate captions, then export. Open Captions and click Generate captions, then Export, choose 1080p or 720p and click Export MP4. Our 1080p file was 10.03 seconds, 1080x1920, H.264 with AAC stereo.

On a phone-sized screen the order changes. Add the clips with Add media, tap the speaker on the timeline, choose More, then Split screen. The sheet says "1 of 2 · tap a second clip on the timeline." Tap the reference clip, read "2 of 2 · the pair is ready." and tap Split screen. Afterwards the toolbar shows Back, Split screen, Swap boxes, Roles and More. We tested this in an emulated 390x844 touch viewport on a desktop, not a physical phone.

Which sound and captions do you get?

Question	What Studio does	What we measured
Whose audio plays?	V1. The shortcut mutes V2.	Export level -22.6 dB; speaker alone -22.5 dB; difference signal about -51 dB
Can the top sound play too?	Yes: select the V2 clip, open Audio and turn off Mute	Unmuted 720p test: -18.0 dB
Whose speech becomes captions?	V1 only	Four lines from the speaker; none from the top voice
Does Swap boxes change this?	No. It swaps boxes, not tracks.	After a swap the speaker was Top but still V1

Studio does not lower one clip under the other. If both talk, listen to the export before you publish.

Place in output or Crop source?

Control	Works on	Use it to
Place in output (desktop: Layout)	The finished clip in the 9:16 frame	Choose Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Picture-in-picture or Custom
Crop source (desktop: Crop)	The original picture	Trim a source edge by percentage before it is placed
Frame, Zoom and Fill pan	The picture inside its box	Move or enlarge what the box shows

We exercised Top and Bottom only. Place is the outer arrangement, Crop trims the file's edges, and a Fill pan moves the picture inside the box. For the watermark, a pan was enough.

What can go wrong, and what should you check?

Problem	Check	Fix
Top box is black	V2 Start is later than the playhead, or the V2 clip ended	Set Start to 0 or extend what plays there
Start refused	The message reads "V2 clips must have nonnegative starts without overlaps or transitions."	Move the new clip after the other V2 clip
Start moves by itself	Our 175-second start for an 8-second clip became 172 seconds	Keep the V2 end at or before 180 seconds
Caption crosses the speaker's face	Lower captions sit at 70% of the frame height, near the top of a bottom box	Pan the speaker so the face is above that line, or move the captions
Pause removal is refused	A V1 transition is in the way	Remove the named transition, then retry

Silences analyses V1 only and says "V2 is cut at the same times." In our test, three pauses (4.0 seconds) were removed and both tracks shrank together, from 10.03 to 6.02 seconds. For the full method see removing pauses without cutting speech.

Which layouts could you try first?

These are suggestions, not tested results:

• Reaction: put the reference on top for the whole speech and keep the speaker at the bottom, where the Lower caption sits.
• Before and after: set the top clip's start a second later so the lower clip speaks first.
• Name tag: if the speaker needs a label, browse lower-third overlays. An unchanged free preset keeps the export free; new text makes that overlay Pro.

Studio has no automatic synchronisation. A speaker and a screen recording that drift apart stay apart. Keep text inside the platform areas described in the text safe-zone guide.

Is it free, and can an assistant build it?

Split screen, Place, Crop, track moves, V2 Start, Silences, 1080p and 720p do not make an export Pro. Studio still needs a free Google sign-in, and any Pro overlay, non-identity overlay motion key, expressive caption style, manually styled caption word or title effect does make it Pro. Captions in Clean, Boxed or Minimal stay free; see adding captions for free. The basic editing flow is in editing a Reel online for free.

Modisign's local assistant tool takes the same arrangement as a request with a track on every clip and a start on V2 clips. We did not run it for this guide.

This test used short clips on a desktop. It did not measure viewer retention, upload to Instagram or exercise a physical phone.