Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 Studio Techniques

Chapter 27. Creating a Good Picture-in-Picture

A picture-in-picture effect (PiP) is quite easy to achieve in Premiere Pro: Drop a clip in the timeline on one video track, then drop a second clip above it on another track. Resize the top clip to make it smaller, add a drop shadow, and quickly you’ve created a simple PiP. The result is a small video clip on top of another full-size clip. This effect is useful when you are trying to put more information on the screen or when you want to reference a video clip that someone on screen is talking about. The best and most common PiP examples play every night on the news.

To help your PiP image stand out from the image it’s covering, however, you need more than a basic drop shadow. You need a frame. In ...