The different aspect ratios of video in 2019 – vertical videos, landscape video, square video. Where to start?
During late 2018 we started to see a huge change in the way videos were looking online. Since smart phone video quality has become so acceptable, the amount of portrait or vertical video being listed online has grown substantially – Why? Well that’s because most people hold their mobile vertically and therefore naturally use the video feature in the same way without even a second thought. At first the social media sites didn’t accommodate for this, and quite frankly made vertical videos a painful thing to watch – horrible black bars and or scaled down so small you could hardly see it on the screen. All because the sites were initially rescaling the videos to fit within tradition landscape ratios.
Now in 2019, every social media site including YouTube can accommodate vertical videos, allowing mobile viewers to watch full screen videos in portrait orientation. Following that Facebook and Instagram launched their own aspect ratio of 4:5 (a slightly taller square) this is currently the native crop of Instagram which fills the Instagram news feed as much as possible, whilst still allowing space for the caption and hash tags – so it goes without saying that this is a ratio you should be considering too. Instagram and Facebook stories of course use vertical video, as well as Instagram TV (IGTV). To add more confusion IGTV has now had an update and allows for landscape video as well, including a full screen button where mobile users can rotate their phone screen to watch full screen landscape content. Confusing right?
As content creators or marketing professionals, where do you start when it comes to creating video content in different aspect ratios?
Our advice firstly, is to stick to landscape, IF you are looking to share content over every platform out there. Landscape or Horizontal video is not only the traditional aspect ratio (16×9) but also every social platform can accommodate it in some form. With that said, if you are making content specifically for Instagram or Facebook (including Facebook ads) then you may wish to consider filming natively in portrait from the outset. This can not only be filmed on mobile, but professional cameras can also film in portrait mode by simply turning it on its side – this is something we are increasingly doing here at Eldraw Creative Media. It feels odd at first but it soon becomes the norm. With this said, you must be aware that it is much easier to crop a landscape video into portrait, than it is to repurpose a vertically shot video into a landscape edit. A clear decision where the content will be used is essential before filming – To play it completly safe, film in landscape then crop it later, keeping the framing in mind whilst filming.
Editing for all aspect ratios in post.
What we’re suggesting to our clients is delivering new content in a variety of ratios, giving you maximum flexibility when it comes to distributing content online. We can re-edit landscape videos to fit into portrait. Yes this often results in cropping if certain scenes however if we know in advance then we can film videos slightly wider to accommodate for this anticipated crop. Filming in 4k can also give greater possibilities for reframing shots to fit in to virtical orientations.
Editing videos in 4:5 ratio for Instagram & Facebook content
Creating a 4:5 ratio video is often easier, if you’re working with virtical video then this simply crops the top and bottom off, which in vertical videos is usually dead space anyway. Of course if you have used text graphics you may need to reposition these to suit. Again if a clear brief is outlined from the start then any potential cropping issues can be remove from the start.
To Conclude
If you’re serious about your video content online, then you should certainly be experimenting with using different aspect ratios and orientations in 2019. Why not track your progress and test which ratios convert better for your particular audience? If you’d like to discuss a video project with our team we’d be delighted to advise you further.