Vertical Video is Driving This Cameraman Insane

Social media: it’s been a gift and a curse for photographers; a gift in that it provides an incredible platform to be seen by millions of people, and a curse in that the algorithm dictates what is posted.

That extends to aspect ratios. Smartphones, with their 9:16 screen, demand content that is produced vertically. It’s an issue that professional motorsport filmmaker Mark Urban recently addressed in a YouTube video this week.

“Most people would say, ‘Just turn the camera sideways.’ Great idea, right? We’ll just frame everything vertically. We’ll know exactly what we’re getting. There’s no need to frame wide and then crop in post,” says Urban.

However, he points out that once you have committed to a vertical shot, it’s vertical forever and can’t be used later in a documentary or any medium that demands horizontal footage.

“Many of my clients want standard 16:9 footage on top of the vertical edits,” adds Urban.

So, with shooting vertical out of the window, what next? The next solution is to shoot horizontally and crop a 9:16 strip. While this sounds bulletproof, Urban explains why it isn’t.

“If you need to produce both horizontal and vertical edits from the same footage, one of those two is always going to suffer,” he says.

Urban says that he sees videographers shooting landscape with vertical lines on a monitor and what tends to happen is they shoot wider because they’re focusing on the vertical lines, leaving the landscape shot undercooked.

Conversely, when shooting landscape and cropping later, videographers tend to crop too tight. This is particularly the case with race cars, which “don’t fit well” in 9:16.

What About Open Gate?

If you’re a camera connoisseur reading this, then no doubt by now you’re screaming about open gate, but what is open gate? Certain cameras allow for the entire surface of the image sensor to be recorded on, which is typically a 3:2 aspect ratio. This allows for more flexible cropping in post.

“What’s always left out of the open gate discussion is that even with all of that extra sensor size, you still struggle to compose shots that look good in both horizontal and vertical,” says Urban.

“Open gate is fantastic, especially if you’re shooting a more static subject matter, like a cooking show or a talking head piece… But with a dynamic subject such as sports, it’s a lot harder to do that.”

Ultimately, Urban believes there is no way to shoot for two different aspect ratios at the same time without a compromise.

To get around this, Urban will sometimes alternate between shooting vertically and horizontally. But with a time-sensitive subject like sports, that’s not always possible.

“The only other conclusion I can think of is clients should start paying for two videographers: one to do horizontal and one to do vertical. But that’s probably never going to happen,” adds Urban.