Vertical was a format. In Southeast Asia it is now the master.
Productions across the region are still shooting landscape and cropping. The markets where mobile is effectively the only screen have stopped accepting the result.
The standard regional workflow still shoots a 16:9 master and derives everything else from it. In markets where the overwhelming majority of viewing is on a phone held upright, that means the primary format is a derivative and it looks like one.
Cropping is not reframing
A landscape frame cropped to vertical loses the composition it was lit and blocked for. Two people in conversation become one person and an elbow. A product shot that read at the right of frame is gone. Editors solve it with punch-ins and pans, which is why so much regional social video has that slightly seasick quality.
Shooting vertical as the master and deriving the landscape version costs the same and inverts which audience gets the compromise — towards the smaller one.
What it changes on the day
- Blocking. Vertical wants depth rather than width; people stand in front of each other, not beside.
- Coverage. Shoot the vertical master and a landscape safe pass, rather than one frame and a promise.
- Type and supers, which have to be composed for the frame that carries them, not scaled into it.
- The first second. Vertical is scrolled, not watched, and the edit has to earn the second second.
You can crop a landscape master into a vertical cut. You cannot crop it into a vertical film.
