> What's the simplest way to clone somebody?

First you get a sample of their DNA. They you get a petri dish. Then... (oh, I should warn you... I've only tried this with sheep) ;-)

> What's the easiest way to do this--as in no green screen or key framing

There is no way to do it without some key framing when the person walks in front of themselves.

You lock down the camera and shoot the first guy. Then you shoot the second guy. In post, you use the Mask in Pan/Crop to split the scene so that both can be seen at the same time. This will only work until someone crosses the split point. Then you'll need to keyframe the mask in order to keep the person walking in front separate. Have them walk fast, and you should only have to keyframe a few frames.

[Edit: if you want to try the difference mask that Mike suggested, also get a locked down shot of the room with no one in frame.]

~jr

Then you'll need to keyframe the mask in order to keep the person walking in front separate.

The person may be walking behind instead of in front. It wasn't specified. Actually it wasn't specified that their paths would even cross at all.

> Actually it wasn't specified that their paths would even cross at all.

Well if they don't cross that makes it even easier but I interpreted "...and the same guy walking through the room" as moving from one end of the room to the other, thus crossing paths at some point.

~jr

Actually, for the sake of simplicity, lets just assume their paths won't cross. What I'm prepared to do then is have the guy sitting on the couch, then the other guy walks in and sits down next to him. No crossing is fine, I just want them cloned, and I want to keep it simple to avoid getting overly technical for now. Down the road I may be ready to try something else, but when I read tutorials like the two bunnies one my eyes cross and I loose interest. Just being honest .So simple is the key word here. Then from the responses so far I think that I should just shoot the room, and and split the screen, and if no one cross that split everything is fine. Right?

"shoot the room and and split the screen and if no one cross that split everything is fine. Right?"

That'll work. Use maybe a mask with a soft edge to split the screen.
Make 101% certain your camera is locked off, Weigh it down with something, even pressing the record button can move a camera, probably better to just leave the camera rolling the whole time.
Watch for changes in lighting, even with a simple mask that could mess you up and you may not realise its happened until you're in post.

Bob.

And to follow up on Bob's suggestions about lighting, watch shadows. If the shadows cross the line or aren't the same in depth and direction, that is a gotcha.

Dave T2

This is actually easy to do. I just did it on a cruise ship. Cruise ships move around. Not an ideal place to shoot a "cloned" scene. The light changes too as the ship moves along. But it worked well enough. If no one crosses in front, a very simple mask will do it.

The harder part is the audio and how the clones interact. If they talk to each other then getting the audio, timing and eye contact right is not so easy. Takes practice and thought and maybe some looped sound. There are some stunning examples on YouTube. Mine is far from that .. My little 5 min story piece just shows what can be done "quick and dirty." Cloning is fun and can generate lots of story ideas. In my case I didn't have a "cast" to work with. I was it, hence the cloning. The cloning scene comes at around 2:30 ..