Vertical video (9:16)
What is vertical video (9:16)?
Vertical video (9:16) is video framed upright, nine units wide to sixteen tall, so that it fills the screen of a phone held the normal way. It is the format of Reels on Instagram and Facebook, of TikTok, of YouTube Shorts and of stories, usually delivered at 1080 × 1920 pixels. The difference goes beyond the frame: composition, captions and where the important part of the picture sits are decided for a tall screen at the shoot.
Example
A bakery orders a video for a new loaf. The first version is filmed horizontally, for the website and YouTube, then cropped to 9:16 for Instagram. The arithmetic: from a 1920 × 1080 frame the vertical window keeps a strip about 608 pixels wide, less than a third of the picture, and then blows it up nearly twice over to reach 1080 × 1920. The baker’s hands drop out of shot, the tray is cut in half, and the opening hours written on screen end up under the app’s description and buttons.
The second version is planned vertically from the start: the loaf in the middle, face and hands in the upper half, the text above the bottom of the screen where the app puts its own labels. The key shots are also filmed horizontally, so the same day yields a cut for the website and a square one for the feed as well.
Why it matters for a business
People hold their phones upright and rarely turn them for one video. A horizontal video in Reels or on TikTok plays as a strip with empty bands above and below, filling a fraction of the screen, while a vertical one fills all of it. Paid campaigns work the same way: story and Reels placements are built for 9:16, and when no version in that shape exists, another one is shown with bars or cropped automatically.
A tall screen has rules of its own. The bottom and the right-hand edge are taken by the account name, the caption and the buttons, so text and logos sit further in. The sound is often off, so the words on screen carry the message. The cheapest moment to settle all of this is before the shoot: one day of filming can give 9:16 for Reels and TikTok, 4:5 or 1:1 for the feed and 16:9 for the website, as long as the shots were planned for it.
What to ask
- Is it filmed vertically from the start, or will the vertical version be cropped out of a horizontal one?
- Where do the captions and the logo sit, so the app’s description and buttons do not cover them?
- Which formats come out of one shoot — 9:16, 4:5, 1:1, 16:9 — and which placement is each one for?
- Is there a version with no text burned in, so an ad can carry a different line?
- Is the finished video checked on a phone, not only on a large monitor?
We shoot and edit vertical video for Reels, TikTok and ads as part of photo and video production, and decide where it fits in the account’s plan within social media management.