Image Magick blend 2 cropped/resize images together in the middle

[StealthRT]

Hey all I have this code below that takes 2 images and merges them together with it fading in the center:

convert testingl.jpg -gravity West ^
testingr.jpg -gravity East ^
blend_mask.png -extent 1080x440 -gravity center -composite bothBlended.jpg

The above produces this:

Using this mask:

Taken from these 2 images (lowered res to fit on here):

testingl.jpg (original size 1224 x 1632)

testingr.jpg (original size 828 x 1792)

This code works great as-is. Does what I need it to do but with one exception - I am wanting to get more of each image into it. Like resize the image, crop from the center the image then take that and blend it. I need to keep the same 1080 x 440 overall size.

Do that with both would look something like this:

[StealthRT]

Got this working.

[dlemstra]

Could you share how? That will probably help someone in the future.

[StealthRT]

convert ^
( testingl.jpg -resize 610x440^^ -gravity West -extent 1080x440 ) ^
( testingr.jpg -resize 610x440^^ -gravity East -extent 1080x440 ) ^
blend_mask.png -blur 0x7 ^
-composite bothImagesMerged.jpg