How To Make A Double Exposure Video

On this video, Caleb Pike from DSLR Video Shooter looks at creating a double exposure video, step by step from the shooting through the editing.

Making a double exposure stills image is something that we covered here many times in the past (you can do that both in camera and in post-production and we actually published videos on both methods). Making double exposure videos is something else that we have yet to cover.

On this video, Pike demonstrates a very simple method for shooting double exposure videos. All you need is a white background, some sort of B-roll that you can use to overlay it on top of your subject to make the double exposure (you can shoot it yourself or acquire some online some types such as drone footage might work better than others).

You need to shoot your subject in a way that it will be properly exposed but the background will be white (or overexposed), you also need to think about colors here (for example what color shirt will your subject be wearing – black might allow the B-roll to be more visible than white for example).

Another thing that can elevate your footage is camera movement (gimbal/slider etc.) can really bring it to the next level and so is slow motion in some cases.

Now you need a good B-roll to overlay on top of your subject – again something like a drone shot can work great (but you can be creative here and try different things) also try and find footage with wide dynamic range (sunrise/subset, landscape in general etc.), it should work better.

The main thing that you will need to do in edit is to change the blend mode (after you placed your footage on top of the B-roll you choose) from normal to “screen”. That’s it – really simple, artistic and cool – you can change some of colors of the B-roll to better pop-up and match your general vibe but the basics here is really easy to master.

You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.