puredrifting
Major Contributor
You’re kinda illustrating my point with this reply
Because, yes, yes indeed, it can be a creative choice. Just because it originated in amateur or even “incompetent” users doesn’t negate that... what do you think shaky cam originated in, not in productions that could afford dolly tracks and dollies and good tripods and good stedicams and so on. Shaky footage was seen as a FLAW and mark of incompetence... until it became an artistic choice. Grain... it originated in cheap stock, poor or excessive blow up of 8/16mm, poor development and insufficient lighting, it was seen as a BAD thing, and then it became a creative choice where people actually add it in. How do you think cinema verite started? Your focus on what’s “technically correct” vs “legitimate” creative choice, illustrates what I said - you’re looking at things too narrowly - and in fact ahistorically and not accurately. You’re a techie.
Now, can vertical be done badly and all kinds of people complain - well OF COURSE. So can unstable footage and grainy footage and a million other flaws - because that’s what happens when they’re used *without* creative intent. But when used with intent, they become tools, sometimes even whole genres and movements like Cinema Verite, and “found footage”. It’s like in music, where amateur and unpolished and limited were all terrible amateur flaws... until it became a whole genre like punk and a whole ethos and a whole way of making music and producing albums. In the early days of punk, you’d be the guy complaining about lack of clean sound and missed notes and poor musicianship. You’d miss the point. And you’re missing the point here. Because, demonstrably, it was a creative choice in the case of the very film that started this thread - intentionally using vertical.
And no, 2.35:1 is not in any way how “humans see” - yes, we have eyes next to each other, but not on the sides of our heads like cows. Sorry, it’s just a convention, exactly like vertical is a convention. Now, I think that vertical is a very limited tool, I doubt it’ll give rise to a whole movement (though I could be wrong!), but it’s no more or less of a convention than is anamorphic.
Look, it’s all a creative choice - 2.35:1 included. Art is bigger than a technical specification.
One can ***** and moan about vertical video all they want. But there is a market for it, it has it's uses for social media and if someone wants to pay me to shoot a project vertically, as long as the check clears, let's do it!
I've almost been hired to shoot a few higher end vertical projects but they have fallen through for reasons having nothing to do with the vertical video aspect. One of our clients is a trade show exihibit company and in trade
shows exhibits, vertical video is a thing, but primarely when used graphically with a little live action.
But if you are shooting a huge raster, very little logical reason to shoot vertically, you just reframe it, in a pan and scan way that gives you some freedom to decide what is seen in that narrow vertical strip.
