The Verge: Portrait videos are a touchy subject. As the logic goes, our eyes are side by side, not stacked on top of one another, making tall and skinny videos something subconsciously unsettling. In a very popular YouTube video two years ago, puppet comedy group Glove and Boots went so far as to call anything shot vertically "crap," while referring to frequent portrait shooters as sufferers of "vertical video syndrome."
7 comments:
I see this not (as the article says) a two-sided debate, ie. there is much grey area. It's not entirely true that video was always widescreen, see full screen televisions, which only started to phase out in the 2000s. Exhibit b) our smart phones are are vertically arranged, and although video is played usually widescreen, all the other media on a phone is vertical. Yes, widescreen format is more visually and aesthetically pleasing, especially because our eyes only focus in that axis, but saying vertical media is unnatural is just plain wrong. I would love to experience a large-scale movie, filmed in vertical format, especially if I got to lay on the floor with pillows.
I really appreciate how though out the artists have been in developing their project. They have found exquisite venues, adapted a projection system to fit their needs, and they even thought to let the front rows have pillows so they don’t have to “crane their necks”. It sounds like a really cool project and I would love to see it in person. I like that they make it clear they aren’t trying to change the world of cinema but rather provide a new opportunity or paradigm. I also love the images of the project; the scale is overwhelming and the color is so vibrant. I was also surprised at first that they are using a film projector rather than a digital projector but it’s really impressive that they have committed to that format.
This is a cool new approach to film making, but as Ruben noted, I don't really see any sort of competition between portrait and Landscape style films. I imagine there are many new possibilities, as far as shots and camera angles go, by rotating the screen. We've grown used to viewing movies in landscape and directors have grown used to working with landscape dimensions, but you can reveal settings and compose shots with a whole new perspective simply by changing to landscape. I'd be interested to see one of these art pieces! (The venues took lovely.)
I'm interested in experimenting with vertical screen formats, but I don't like how this group is doing it. I think that they are making some pretty large limitations on the work that can be displayed using a vertical format. For example 35mm film is much harder for most people to use these days than digital video. I think that if they had more options for digital video then artists could use this festival with much more flexibility. I am also not a fan of videos designed to overwhelm viewers. I would really like to see if artists can find ways of using a vertical screen to create art that doesn't aim only to make the audience uncomfortable.
I do really like the buildings that they are using for this project. The architecture works so well with screen size.
This article is a little deceptive because it is trying to justify shooting vertical videos with your iphone but these are films specifically shot to be pleasing in a vertical format. When people shoot videos on their iphone vertically they are just being lazy. Most of the time they are trying to shoot a horizontal composition in a vertical format, which looks bad. Also youtube, where we watch most of our videos, is really only arranged to watch horizontal videos as are our computer screens. So I am all for vertical video films set up in such a way that it is pleasant to view them but everyone else needs to shoot horizontally.
Ugh, our eyes are horizontal, not vertical!!! Frustrations aside, I generally think that vertical video is pretty dumb. I've seen way too many amateur youtube videos shot vertically from someone's iphone. That being said, I'm sure there is artistic potential in vertical video, as these artists are showing. Perhaps even, these artistically shot vertical videos are pleasing to the eye. But that being said, I firmly hope that the average smartphone wielding person will PLEASE shoot video horizontally!
It's nice to see a forum where it's not mostly "vertical video sucks." congrats CMUers.
For anyone interested in watching a feature length vertical video, Alicewinks is such a beast. A 15 min. sample and some trailers are on vimeo (and amazon app store and youtube.) But the best version is on iPad from iBookstore. just search for Alicewinks on google or any of the other sites mentioned.
For those who wanted to see the originals from this Dutch presentation, previews are here: http://vimeo.com/album/2652850
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