"Living with Yourself" video tutorial

After watching "Living with Yourself" with Paul Rudd on Netflix, I felt inspired to try something similar. Despite having just basic camera equipment this trick is fairly simple to pull off. The most important thing is to have is a tripod. You also need to think carefully about your "stage".

The way it works is you need to film yourself in the two roles, thinking carefully about how you would interact with yourself. Because of this, it's important to know how your scene is going to work.

Shot 1 "Summer" me

Shot 2 "Working" me

The way I did it was to film my "Summer" self first, placing the Coke can on the table. Then, without moving the tripod, I changed and filmed my "Working" self, picking up the Coke can from the same position.

Once you've filmed both shots, it's time to take it to the editor. I used WeVideo, which is my go-to editor for almost every video I create. It's impossible to know whether you've filmed it correctly until you start working with the edit... I had to film myself a few times to get it right. This is why it's important to think carefully about your "stage" because if there are any variables, it won't work. For example, the first time I tried it, it was really windy and the leaves were moving around a lot. Therefore, when I tried to edit the two shots there was too much movement and it was obvious where they were put together. You also don't want to use a background where people are moving around.

Now, the tricky part was having the two shots interact... in my case, sharing the Coke can. This was done by cropping the shots between frames. The .gifs below show how the different shots are layered... "Summer" me puts the can down, and as soon as my hand is out of the way I remove that part of the shot so that the can is now visible in the "Working" me shot. Simple. Kind of.