Vertical Video: Just say No!

[David Shirey]

[Tim Wilson] “This is from a vertical film festival being held in a cathedral. A horizontal screen would have been positively sinful. ????”

Yeah, the thing you want to see doesn’t fit in the frame and half the image is just empty sky. Sure looks like the kind of vertical videos my clients send me ☺

I will say this about phone video, I prefer the sites that use square or 4:3, because even when holding my phone vertically I’d prefer the video not fill up the entire screen. The idea being if I’m scrolling through twitter I’d like to see other stuff while the video is playing. If it’s an actual good video I want to pay attention to like on YouTube, I turn my phone and fill the screen horizontally. If it’s an ad or some 5 second cat gif, I’m not going to bother maximizing the window so it should just fit in the interface of whatever app I’m already using.

I guess when it comes to making commercial videos I have to accept that I’m not making art people actually want to see, just an annoyance that a corporation is paying to make viewers have to sit through for a few seconds.

[Dan Powers]

Just say Yes! It creates more work for editors!

[Aaron Star]

The way “Mr Robot” is shot, it could just as well be vertical framed. Although all the extra space is somehow “new,” even though 20 years ago they would have fired the DP.

I guess that is in response to the comment on seeing all the sky in the cathedral shot above.

[Derek Charles]

I’m reading around this thread and am learning that social media sites prefer 1:1 square…
I film 4k –
do I render 1280 X 1280
or
1080 X 1080
What do I go with that Facebook would prefer as square?
Thanks

[Mark Suszko]

I’d want to know if facebook resamples or converts every uploaded video to 800 by 800 automatically, in which case I figure the higher rez input leads to abetter final output from their process. If facebook passes thru the video un-modified, then 800×800 original seems to make more sense.

Still trying to figure out why Youtube always feels it has to re-compress my videos, no matter what codec or frame size I try. Then it give me a snarky message offering tips to improve the next upload. Doesn;t seem to matter what I do though.

[Steve Connor]

Just stumbled on this thread and thought it deserves another contribution. With the recent launch of IGTV from Instagram, vertical video is once again something that we are likely to be seeing more of. Snapchat seems to be slowly fading but IGTV actually has the potential to grow, especially if it offers a monetisation option (which has been rumoured)

I’ve been shooting some test footage as well as re-editing some existing films to fit the aspect ratio (you can actually force landscape in IGTV) and it’s actually been fun! I haven’t been a fan of vertical video in the past and it’s difficult to let go of your natural urge to frame in landscape, but I like a challenge and I’m looking forward to seeing where IGTV goes!

IGTV: steveconnorfilm