It’s a question as old as time. Well, not really. Mainly since smartphones have become a force in the field of video production.
Up and down or side to side? Vertical or horizontal? More technically speaking portrait or landscape?
The portrait way, which is up and down so to speak, has its uses. If you are sending someone a video of yourself walking in your new suit, it may be the way to go. Or, if you enjoy producing lip-syncing music videos in various apps for Instagram and the like that’s fine too. Various social media sharing platforms encourage slightly different ratios at times and that is great. I guess.
However, for a traditional and some might say a real video, I prefer landscape or some version of 16×9. It’s a great fit for YouTube and websites. It’s also the format that resembles television and movies. Although movie ratios can vary, that’s why sometimes they still do not quite fit your TV screen even with the newer wide TV formats, I have yet to walk into a theater and find a vertically mounted screen as opposed to a horizontal one.
I’m pretty sure some version of portrait was tried a while back for certain movies and the concept sank like an iron ore paddle boat down to the bitty bitty bottom of the sea of misguided and bad ideas.
Last year I participated in a Video LinkedIn challenge and shot a little video about the subject. How about you? How do you shoot your video?