Both layers play from the same head, so V2 is composited onto V1 rather than cut after it. Switch the layout, or drag the inset.
A video collage is several clips playing at once in one frame, built by stacking them on layers and deciding what each one occupies. Split screen and picture in picture are the same technique at different sizes. It runs in your browser, and the composition stays editable until the moment you export it.
How to make a video collage in three steps
- 01
Stack the clips
Put each video on its own layer so they play together instead of in turn.
- 02
Size and place them
Scale, crop and position each one until the frame divides the way you want.
- 03
Export the composite
Render every layer into a single MP4 up to 4K on your own machine.
What building a collage involves
Stacked video layers are a Compose V2 capability, and V2 arrives per workspace.
As many layers as it takes
Video layers stack, and what is higher sits in front. A collage is that fact used deliberately: the background is the layer at the bottom and every panel is one above it, each with its own span on the timeline.
Position, scale and crop per clip
Each layer carries its own transform, so a wide shot is cropped to a column and a vertical one is scaled to a corner. Cropping, not shrinking, is what keeps an uneven pair looking like a designed split.
Opacity and blend modes
A layer does not have to be opaque. Drop the opacity to let one shot show through another, or change how the two combine, and a collage becomes an overlay instead of a grid of boxes.
Panels that come and go
Position and scale animate over a clip, so an inset can slide in, hold, and leave. A panel that arrives when it is relevant reads far better than four boxes sitting still for the whole video.
Fill the gaps with no file
Colour cards fill the space a layout leaves, in place of a black rectangle doing it by default, and titles are timeline items that sit above the whole arrangement and stay editable.
Out as one picture
Every layer composites into a single MP4 at 4K or below, rendered on your machine. What plays in the editor is what the file contains.
Collages are usually short of one panel, not one edit. When a layout needs a shot nobody filmed, generate it to the shape of the panel in the same project, from the whole model roster, and drop it onto its own layer. Seedance 2.5 is one of the video models on that roster.
Split screen video
A split screen makes an argument by putting two things side by side and letting the viewer compare them: before and after, two takes of the same line, a reaction beside the thing being reacted to. The layout does work a cut between them would do more slowly.
Building one is two layers and two crops:
- Place both clips in the frame.
- Crop each to the half it occupies, rather than scaling them down until they float in the middle.
- Check the subject is still inside its own half after the crop.
That last step is where most splits fail: the crop gets set on the footage instead of on the framing, and one person ends up at the edge of their own panel.
Picture in picture video
Picture in picture is a collage with a clear hierarchy. One clip is the video and another sits in a corner of it, which is the right shape for a tutorial with a presenter, a game with a reaction, or a screen recording with someone explaining it.
The corner panel need not stay for the whole thing. Position and scale animate, so it can arrive when there is something to say and leave when there is not. Size it against the content underneath rather than against the frame: a panel covering the part of a screen recording people are trying to read is a mistake no styling fixes.
Video collage layouts worth building
A layout is a decision about attention, so the useful ones are few:
- Two equal halves for a comparison.
- One large panel and one small for a commentary.
- Three or four equal panels when several things happen at once and none is the subject.
Everything past that costs legibility. The advantage of building the arrangement is moving between them without rebuilding: drag a corner inset up to half the frame and a commentary becomes a comparison. Resizing the project afterwards tells you quickly whether it survives a vertical crop. Panels that should arrive and leave are the job of a keyframe video editor; panels that should be quiet want you to mute video on every layer but one. A collage that turns out to want its clips in sequence is the moment to merge videos online instead.
Related video tools
Online video editor
The multi-layer timeline the whole arrangement is built on.
Video background remover
Cut a presenter out of their room before dropping them into a corner.
Resize video online
Check whether a layout survives the frame it is going to publish in.
AI green screen
Key a shot so a panel can sit over the picture instead of beside it.
Keyframe animation
Move an inset in and out instead of leaving it parked all the way through.
Add text to video
Label the panels, which most comparisons need and most forget.
Remove audio from video
Silence the panels that are not carrying the sound of the piece.
AI slideshow maker
When the clips should follow one another, not share a frame.
