What reframing does
Most long recordings are shot wide. A 9:16 frame only shows about a third of that width, so a straight crop often cuts people in half or leaves the speaker at the edge. Reframing moves the vertical window through the shot so it stays on whoever is talking, cuts to the other person when they reply, and holds still when nobody moves, so the picture doesn't drift.
Layouts we use
Single speaker
The window follows one person. Best for solo episodes, talks and direct-to-camera clips.
Stacked pair
Two speakers, one above the other, for quick exchanges where both faces matter.
Screen and face
The screen share fills most of the frame with the speaker in a strip above or below it.
Full wide with bars
The whole wide shot in the middle with titles above and captions below, for moments where the room matters.
What makes footage easy to reframe
Higher resolution helps, because a vertical crop from a wide shot uses a small part of the picture. Footage recorded in 4K holds up better than 1080p when cropped. Speakers framed in the middle of their own camera angle reframe cleanly, while people sitting at the very edge of a wide shot are harder to follow. If you record on separate cameras per person, send every angle.
Screen shares and slides
Slides made for a wide screen often have small text that becomes unreadable in a vertical clip. We zoom into the part that matters, or rebuild a key line as a caption-style title in your fonts. Send the original slide files when you can, since a crisp slide looks much better than one cropped from a recording.
Where it falls short
Reframing can't add picture that wasn't recorded. If two people sit far apart in one wide shot and talk over each other fast, a single vertical window can't show both. A stacked layout fixes that, or we pick a moment where one person speaks at a time.
Questions
Can you deliver square or 4:5 versions too?
Yes. Say which shapes you need in the brief and they go into the quote with the vertical versions.
My footage is 1080p. Will that work?
Usually, yes, especially for a single speaker framed near the middle. Send a sample and we'll tell you how tight the crop can go.
Got a long video and an empty posting calendar? Tell us what you record, how often, and how many shorts you want each month.
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