[temp234]

Landscape has a super old history, but it made the most sense where it originated, which was the stage, with curtains, for live theater. It got carried into film and then streaming video as a kind of analogy

You are living through a transition in human tech and society on the level of the printing press! The switch to vertical video makes sense right now because this is how people tend to consume scrolling content and hold their phones one-handed. I think it isn't better or worse, it's just different and interesting and a sign people are relating to the medium in new ways

[yakubin]

The reason why landscape is used in film is not analogy, but the fact that humans move a lot horizontally, almost never vertically. Portrait orientation may be good for portrait photos (although landscape is often also very good, or better, depending on the specific case) but not for films. Filming human movement in portrait makes for a claustrophobic feeling, requires the camera to move all the time, and cuts out context (including other people). It has its place, but it's a poor default. I've seen some videos which were recorded from such a long distance that they looked bizarre. The only reason for that distance was the use of portrait orientation, the film wouldn't work without the horizontal context. But it was meant for TikTok, so of course it had to be vertical.

[lwhi]

I'm sorry, but this isn't true.

[cookingrobot]

I walk forward a lot more than I walk side to side, and the stuff I pay attention to when walking is more generally arranged vertically than horizontally.

All I’m saying is the appeal to nature of landscape mode doesn’t seem like the whole story.

[zmeden]

I'd say it has more to do with human vision which cover a wider horizontal angle than vertical.

The medium (film) maybe adapted to how we see. Nowadays it might be adapting to how we hold the thing we see through.

[temp234]

I hadn't considered this! It's a good point.

Aspect ratios were surprisingly all over the place in early film. Now I'm wondering what parts of aspect ratios were driven by the actual physical characteristics of film.

[lwhi]

It's not only a good point, it's the correct point.

[temp234]

If videos had to match the field of vision, and this was the audience's primary concern, I'd 100% agree! I think it's close to their primary concern when watching something like a nature documentary or a historical drama or playing a video game where you walk around a landscape. Vertical video has convinced me that you can tell some kinds of stories and convey certain kinds of info without using deliberate backgrounds, people standing next to each other talking, and people moving around. In vertical video you see a lot of cutting between two people, people talking about being in an environment that does not match their background, or one person playing multiple people. You don't need to learn pesky blocking or how to act with your body. Things that used to seem static, like giving a lecture while standing still, can seem reasonably dynamic. You can just focus on the human face. It's an option with pros and cons and it will encourage certain kinds of uses

[yakubin]

In order to represent your walk vertically in a film, the camera would need to be overhead, directed at the ground (or beneath you, directed upwards). You walk forward from your own perspective, but it's rare from other people's perspectives (and still doesn't matter for horizontal vs vertical, since it's the Z dimension, not X or Y). Using depth to represent motion is a pretty bad idea most of the time, given that it's the dimension where movement is the hardest to notice (again, there are exceptions (precisely when you want the movement in the periphery to be hard to notice, only to make it more noticeable when the thing the moves gets closer (or the opposite))).

If you recorded Lord of the Rings, or Interstellar in portrait orientation, they would be pretty crappy films.

> the stuff I pay attention to when walking is more generally arranged vertically than horizontally.

I don't know what you mean.

Another point: your eyes are organized horizontally, not vertically. You have move horizontal vision than vertical. By filming in vertical orientation you quite simply make things more cramped, quite possible losing the space you could use to put more objects in, or just space out the objects you have in order to make things less messy.

Again, there are artistic reasons to sometimes prefer portrait over landscape, but that doesn't mean it's a good default. Making good films requires being conscious of those things, understanding that they are not arbitrary (therefore left just to which way it's more comfortable for people to hold their phones).

[Gordonjcp]

But your field of view is far wider than it is tall.

[naniwaduni]

> Landscape has a super old history, but it made the most sense where it originated, which was the stage, with curtains, for live theater.

Also, eyes.

[bckygldstn]

In case anyone else was wondering the aspect ratio of eyes: it's about 4:3 to 16:9 [0].

[0] https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/5128/preferred-a...

[Jyaif]

Should they take off, AR and VR should make vertical videos go away.

[JacobAldridge]

I'm not so sure, at least for some of the AR stuff we're working on - most people we're testing with still point-and-aim their phones vertically, even when consuming 360 degree videos. Headsets will make another huge change of course, if they become mainstream.

[fortyseven]

"You are living through a transition in human tech and society on the level of the printing press!"

Sure, whatever you say.

[elzbardico]

And stages are horizontal because humans have this strange tendency of favoring moving in a plane parallel to the ground instead of moving vertically.

[lwhi]

I think you're forgetting that our field of vision hadn't changed.

We use landscape because our field of vision is more wide than it is tall.