Apple shares new ‘Vertical Cinema’ Shot on iPhone short film

puredrifting said:
Vertical monitors are huge in retail and trade shows. I love the moving menus that have nice still and motion video along with the actual menu prices
at my local non-chain Burger Barn.
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Good point. I have nothing against portrait orientation displays generally (I mean I'm typing on one right now). I just dont want them swallowing up movies and TV
 
Run&Gun said:
lazy people that can't be bothered to rotate their phones(both in shooting it and viewing it
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Yeah, but even those people don't really care at the end.
Since Quibi is pretty much dead in the water by now - despite the fact, that several Hollywood heavy wights (Jeffrey Katzenberg, Meg Whitman), and A-listers thrown a ton of money at it - I recon, that nobody actually wants to watch films vertical.
It was an expensive experiment by people that got told by so called experts, what "the kids" want today - turns out, the experts aren't so expert at all.

"We gonna change streaming and the way you watch movies forever" (Katzenberg in April)

But despite plenty of star power including Chrissy Teigan, Chris Hemsworth, Kevin Hart, and Migos just to name a few, Quibi has struggled to retain (or even generate) interest right out of the gate. Reports show the quick-bite video platform lost 90% of its users after the free trial ended just 90 days after launch.

Now they’re considering laying off 10% per cent of their employees now, the senior management are taking a pay cut to keep the company alive, and - most crucially for advertisers - Quibi is failing to attract the expected number of downloads by a huge margin.

"Is it the avalanche of people that we wanted and were going for out of launch?
The answer is no. It’s not up to what we wanted. It’s not close to what we wanted.” (Katzenberg in June)

I'm not saying I told you so - but, I told you so :-)
 
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I am sure Quibi was market tested a gazillion times and the end results were highly positive.

As someone who once did those marketing tests ---- hahahahahaha.

PS. I once worked for a local LA area retail chain, that was known for its "warehouse" type discounting and its unpretentious salespeople. Who wore jeans and T-shirts to work, unlike the competing outlets. (I am sure PD knows who I am talking about). Then new shirt&tie chains moved into the LA market and the customer surveys showed that that's what buyers wanted. They wanted a more "professional" setting to shop. So, the retailer changed ... and promptly folded a couple of years later.
 
Postmaster said:
Yeah, but even those people don't really care at the end.
Since Quibi is pretty much dead in the water by now - despite the fact, that several Hollywood heavy wights (Jeffrey Katzenberg, Meg Whitman), and A-listers thrown a ton of money at it - I recon, that nobody actually wants to watch films vertical.
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I agree with you - the quibi concept sucked.

But it's not a sound experiment regarding the appetite for vertical films because they were also experimenting with short-form at the same time.

Also - someone pointed out that quibi was supposed to appeal to commuters and hyper-busy business types. And since the pandemic killed commuting, they might have launched at just the wrong time...the time when people were craving long, endlessform not short-form
 
I watched expecting to hate it, but I rather liked it because it fit the intention. Maybe it's just that we're so used to all vertical frame material being dreadfully shot?
 
This is only tangentially related - but has anyone else experienced ads that squeeze the whole picture down into the space at the bottom of the page as youre scrolling down? So instead of showing just the top of the image it'll be the whole image squeezed into a strip that unsqueezes as you scroll down and give it more room? I see the logic but it's very strange

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ahalpert said:
You're missing my point, amigo. Like for 4:3 small TVs - TV was shot with a preponderance of close-ups and ECUs. This was a limitation and while it led to some cool shots, it also precluded many.

Contrast that with Avatar in 3D - Cameron chose to shoot 3D and developed the technology he needed. I thought it was crap - unnecessary, unwieldy, ineffective and unenjoyable. But it was a choice, not a necessity based on viewing limitations.

And most importantly - I've never seen a vertical format film I've enjoyed. Show me one!

We're social animals and most socializing happens laterally. You can't do a proper 2-shot or 3-shot in vertical without a very wide framing. But the audience is watching on a tiny screen, so then they won't see facial detail. Tricky
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While I didn't think Avatar was "crap", I did find it totally underwhelming. But that had nothing at all to do with the 3D--that was actually the best part of the movie for me. What it lacked was a story to care about.

And I think that's the key to what vertical video would need to succeed: it would need a compelling story that is fully supported by the format. I could imagine that someone could create films about runway models, rock climbers, space rockets, etc. that could actually use a vertical frame as an effective part of the storytelling. But it would require exceptional creativity.
 
Here are a couple illustrations of strengths and weaknesses of various aspect ratios.

I passed over this photo in Politico of Biden interacting with people via screens at his convention.

I actually think the vertical format translates nicely into the feeling that each screen is a PERSON who is PRESENT:

vertical screens2.jpg

An aspect ratio fail I saw recently was this 2-shot from star trek voyager where the characters are crammed too closely together (which is not at all uncommon).

This gave me the social gut feeling that he was trying to intimidate her. But actually there was no tension between the characters, although it's a dramatic moment. I just think they had to stand super close to share the 4:3 frame -

Screen Shot 2020-08-22 at 1.56.04 PM.jpg
 
Or they didn't have a slightly wider lens. (Like a few mms wider...because they probably had something much wider.)
 
Back in the day, news broadcasts wondered what they were going to do with 16:9. They had talking heads. All that extras space (and resolution) just meant a bigger, more expensive set that was of no use to them.
 
NorBro said:
Or they didn't have a slightly wider lens. (Like a few mms wider...because they probably had something much wider.)
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They are not in a fixed camera position. They could have simply backed either the camera up or staged the actors a bit further away
 
ahalpert said:
They are not in a fixed camera position. They could have simply backed either the camera up or staged the actors a bit further away
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You weren't there to know (and either was I).

Camera could have been on a fixed track moving sideways to them, or if the talent backed up more the director would have lost shallow DOF (if that was a consideration).

Or they could have had a zoom and all of the above is irrelevant.

There are millions of production errors and this could have been a simple oversight as well.
 
NorBro said:
You weren't there to know (and either was I).

Camera could have been on a fixed track moving sideways to them, or if the talent backed up more the director would have lost shallow DOF (if that was a consideration).

Or they could have had a zoom and all of the above is irrelevant.

There are millions of production errors and this could have been a simple oversight as well.
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They're on a set and execute a number of other angles and camera positions and dolly moves in the same scene. It seems like they're trying to achieve deep focus, if anything.

Here are previous frames from the same shot - you can see how they walk towards camera and land on their marks. It was an intentional framing:

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After now seeing the first frame of the sequence, they of course naturally had less room with 4:3 since they were walking closer to the camera, but I wouldn't think much of it regardless.

Just wondering...did the music get slightly dramatic and did they cut to a commercial (or fade to black) after a slight pause with the two looking at each other?
 
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