{"id":2169,"date":"2015-12-25T16:50:07","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T00:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/newsroom15\/?p=649"},"modified":"2021-06-22T18:37:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:37:56","slug":"horizontal-video-or-bust-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2015\/12\/25\/horizontal-video-or-bust-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Horizontal Video or Bust! Or Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katy Mersmann<\/strong>
\nONA Newsroom<\/p>\n

Quick! Grab your phone and start filming video\u2026now stop!<\/p>\n

Are you holding your phone vertically or horizontally?<\/p>\n

For most trained journalists, the answer is always horizontal. The 16×9 video format is practically an imperative. But with the advent of mobile and social media content, so-called traditional videos are becoming less common.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow people are consuming this content is changing so you have to assume the way people are viewing it is also changing,\u201d NowThis News\u2019 Dhiya Kuriakose said.<\/p>\n

She produces content for all of NowThis\u2019 platforms that require non-traditional video formats. She pays close attention to how the audience uses their devices and tries to tailor content to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole lives are such a scrolling economy at this point and you make money when you stop scrolling,\u201d Kuriakose said.<\/p>\n

For her, the most important consideration is whether the video makes sense for the user on each specific platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re creating vertical video, it needs to feel natural and work for the platform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On Snapchat, almost all content has to be vertical. Gerald Lane produces Snapchat content for NowThis and he said the platform and user experience dictates the way he presents content, mostly vertical.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, when users are scrolling on Facebook, a vertical video will fill the whole screen, which doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

And Instagram\u2019s most recent update allows users to upload content with a variety of aspect ratios. Kuriakose thinks that\u2019s the future of image content.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the less technical rules we have there and the more good stories we have there, the better it is for everybody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

There are some unique challenges to creating vertical video at this point. Most tripods only hold cameras and phones in a horizontal layout and editing software is primarily designed for horizontal.<\/p>\n

The important thing is to make sure the content is unique and tailored to the right platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe very rarely create content across platforms,\u201d Kuriakose said. \u201cWe can\u2019t take something that did well on Facebook and throw it on other platforms and expect it to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when content is accessible to the reader, that\u2019s when journalism is successful.\u00a0\u201cThe goal is get the user\u2019s best experience,\u201d Kuriakose said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katy Mersmann ONA Newsroom Quick! Grab your phone and start filming video\u2026now stop! Are you holding your phone vertically or horizontally? For most trained journalists, the answer is always horizontal.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10572,"featured_media":2052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[480],"tags":[668],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"coauthors":[1128],"class_list":{"0":"post-2169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conference","8":"tag-ona15"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2015\/09\/Vert-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5Q1c-yZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3462,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions\/3462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}