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Formats2 min read

LESSON 127

Vertical video for phones

Framing for a screen held upright.

IN THIS LESSON

  1. Taller than wide
  2. Not new
  3. Composing for the tall frame
  4. Shooting both shapes

Taller than wide

Vertical video is made to be watched in portrait mode, taller than it is wide, the opposite of the horizontal formats inherited from theatre, landscape painting and cinema. Professionals long avoided it because it did not fit film, television or web players, and it left black bars at the sides. The rise of phone apps, Snapchat and above all TikTok, which are built around the portrait screen, changed that, and advertisers and broadcasters now produce vertical video on purpose. Square video, popularised by Instagram and Vine, is the in-between option.

Not new

Vertical images have older roots, in tall church frescoes and windows. The first moving pictures of a falling cat, made by Etienne-Jules Marey in 1894, were vertical. When cinema was standardised in 1895, the frame became horizontal. In 1930 Sergei Eisenstein argued in Hollywood for a screen that could change shape, including vertical, but the industry chose the Academy ratio. Video art later used tall frames, and in 2005 Imogen Heap's video for Hide and Seek was one of the first music videos shot in portrait.

Composing for the tall frame

This is working practice. The common phone format is 9:16. A tall frame suits people from head to waist, buildings, waterfalls and anything that moves up and down. Wide landscapes and two people side by side are harder. Keep faces and text away from the top and bottom edges, where apps place buttons and captions. Hold the subject in the middle third, and move the camera up and down rather than side to side. Lead with motion or a face in the first second, because viewers scroll quickly.

Shooting both shapes

This is working practice. If a piece must work both vertically and horizontally, you can shoot two passes, one with the camera rotated, or shoot wide at high resolution and frame for a central vertical crop. A 3840 by 2160 frame gives a vertical crop of roughly 1215 by 2160 pixels, enough for 1080 by 1920 delivery; that figure is our own arithmetic. Mark the vertical safe area in the monitor so both versions are composed, not just cropped. Some cameras offer a vertical recording mode directly.

Try it today

  1. 01Shoot a 15-second clip with the phone held vertically.
  2. 02Shoot the same action horizontally in 4K.
  3. 03Crop the 4K clip to 9:16 in your editor.
  4. 04Compare which version frames the person better.
  5. 05Check where an app's buttons would cover your picture.