Getting Your Full Image

Have you ever watched the Today Show on NBC where they featured footage of a hurricane taken by someone with a smartphone? Did you ever notice that, sometimes, the sides are completely blurred out while the center is crystal clear? There's a reason for that, and the reason is that whomever sent in the footage shot it with their phone in portrait, or vertical, position.

In the old days, networks didn't care if there were two large black boxes on the sides of footage like this. It was part and parcel of the job. But then they realized that big black boxes are ugly, so they had to find a way to fill the frame with footage that is meant to fill only about 30% of it. So they do a little trick in editing. On one line of video, they'll put the vertical shot. On a line underneath, they'll put the same footage, blow it up by 1000%, and then blur it... all to fill the frame. Because video editing systems like Adobe's Premiere Pro always give preference to the highest line of video, the clear center will rest on top of the blurry background.

Do you know how this can be avoided? By always (yes Snapchat, I'm looking at you!)... ALWAYS... filming your video in landscape, or horizontal mode. Because what many people don't realize is that they have a very powerful camera in that Android or I-phone. The new ones are capable of taking 4K footage, 24 frames-per-second footage (which is the setting that looks like film... my personal favorite), and silky smooth super-slo-mo. It's literally begging you to film in landscape mode.

Think of it this way: have you ever walked into a cinema where the screen is portrait? Of course not. Video and film are meant to be shot wide. So many of us are just in the habit of filming portrait because that's how we look at our phones, primarily, but video is simply a different animal. With that in mind, to get the absolute most out of that mini-Panavision in your pocket, always shoot while holding your phone sideways.

And if you forget and start filming portrait only to realize that you should have started landscape, turn the recording off, turn the phone sideways, and restart your recording. Once recording starts, most phones are going to stay in the format you started with. The editors at the Today Show will thank you.

Happing filming!

- Dan