Vertical format is not a crop

We regularly receive corporate videos shot in 16:9, with a request to ‘make them vertical for social media’. It can be done in ten minutes. The result almost never converts.

What cropping destroys

• The composition. A wide horizontal shot cropped to vertical loses most of its image, and usually the subject along with it.
• The on-screen text. Positioned for a wide frame, it falls out of the frame or ends up under the app's interface.
• The pace. A horizontal video is written for a screen people watch; a vertical one, for a screen people scroll.

What we do differently on the shoot

• Subjects are framed tighter, and centred in the top third of the image.
• The bottom third is left clear: that is where the platforms place their buttons, their text and the account name.
• Movement is vertical rather than sideways — a horizontal pan crosses a narrow frame in half a second.
• Everything is readable without sound. Most views start muted.

That is how we shoot our video ads, like the triplex tour in Marrakech filmed vertically for All In Kech.

A well-shot vertical video is still watchable horizontally. The reverse is almost never true.

When cropping can be justified

When the original video was shot in very high definition with deliberately loose wide shots, a clean vertical frame can be taken from it. That decision is made before the shoot, not after — and it is what we do when the same content has to live on television and on phones.