To make a split screen in Premiere Pro, you scale each clip down with Motion's Scale and Position controls, stack the clips on separate tracks, and crop where they overlap. That native method works for any two-or-three-clip layout and costs nothing but time. As of this week there is also a one-click version: GridMaker, our grid plugin, now runs in Premiere Pro, and it lays out, swaps, and re-grids your clips from a panel.
This guide teaches the native method properly first, then the plugin path, because the best way to appreciate a layout tool is to have built a nine-box podcast grid by hand exactly once.
How do you make a split screen in Premiere Pro natively?
Stack your clips on separate tracks
Two clips for a two-way split: one on V1, one on V2, aligned in time. Every visible clip in the layout needs its own track.
Scale and position each clip
Select a clip, open Effect Controls > Motion, and set Scale to 50 for a half-screen split. Then drag Position so each clip occupies its half: for 1920x1080, centers land at 480 and 1440 on the X axis.
Crop where framing fights the cell
Scaling shows the whole frame, letterboxed into its slot. When you instead want each clip to FILL its half, keep Scale larger and add Effect > Transform > Crop to trim the sides so clips do not overlap.
Nudge for headroom
With crop-and-fill, drag Position inside the crop to reframe each person. This is the fiddly part, and the part you will redo every time someone swaps sides.
Add a divider if you want one
A thin white Color Matte (Legacy Title or a graphic rectangle) on the top track sells the split. Optional, but it reads clean on podcast layouts.
That is the whole native technique, and for a one-off two-way split it is genuinely fine. The pain arrives with more boxes, revisions, and vertical re-frames, because every change means redoing scale, position, and crops per clip.
What about three or more clips?
Same method, more math. A three-up podcast layout (screen share plus two faces) means three tracks, three scale values, three positions, and crops tuned so nothing overlaps. A nine-box wall means nine of everything, and if the client swaps two people you re-position both cells by hand. Grids are not hard in Premiere; they are tedious, which is a different problem, and the one plugins are honest solutions for.
The one-click version: GridMaker, now in Premiere Pro
GridMaker has built grids in After Effects for years; as of this week it also runs in Premiere Pro. The Premiere version is deliberately timeline-shaped: select clips, pick a layout, assign which clip goes in which cell, and Apply Layout grids them in place. Then the parts the native method makes painful:
Trade two people's cells and hit Apply Layout again; the layout re-grids itself.
Drag cell boundaries to widen a speaker's box, center things up, then Apply. No crop arithmetic.
Save a layout you like and reuse it on every episode. (Zoom levels inside cells are per-use; set those after applying.)
One control adds gutters between cells, with an edge toggle for full-bleed outer borders.
Drop the same clips in a vertical social sequence and the layouts re-define for the format automatically.
Honest scope note: the Premiere version is about layouts and tiling; the animated 3D and path grids remain After Effects territory, where that work belongs. And everything in the native section above still works with zero plugins.
Key takeaways
50% scale for a half split, positions at the cell centers, crop where framing fights the cell.
Two clips is fine by hand. Nine clips and a revision cycle is what layout tools are for.
Timeline grids, visual editing, presets, padding, vertical-aware. The AE version keeps the animated Advanced Mode.
Podcast grids, comparison splits, social tiles: layouts are where editing meets spreadsheet work, and both paths above get you there. Build one by hand to understand it; automate it the day it becomes every episode. For the full picture of what earns a slot in your Premiere setup, our honest plugins guide covers the rest, and the packaging guide covers getting the finished episode out the door.
