Miriam Ross Vertical Framing Article Refractory

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/320025028
Vertical Framing: Authenticity and New Aesthetic Practice in Online Videos
Article · January 2014
CITATIONS READS
10 2,173
1 author:
Miriam Ruth Ross

Independent Researcher
43 PUBLICATIONS 296 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
All content following this page was uploaded by Miriam Ruth Ross on 09 June 2019.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Vertical Framing: Authenticity and New Aesthetic Practice in Online Videos — Miriam Ross | R... http://refractory.unimelb.edu.au/2014/08/06/ross/
Get me outta here!
Refractory
a Journal of Entertainment Media (ISSN:1447-4905) STATE OF PLAY SUBMISSIONS EDITORIAL BOARD ABOUT HOME
PAST ISSUES CONTACT
1 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
VERTICAL FRAMING: AUTHENTICITY AND NEW AESTHETIC PRACTICE IN

Like 20
ONLINE VIDEOS — MIRIAM ROSS

AUGUST 6, 2014 BY ANGELAN
Go
2
“ A b s t r a c t : In recent years there has been much focus on the opportunities that mobile media devices
(phones, tablets) offer for user-generated audio-video production. Most often this focus has
concentrated on content with emphasis on new citizen journalism and YouTube home videos. Less
attention has been given to the negotiations of aesthetic parameters that mark a departure from
PAGES
About
Contact
traditional filmmaking modes. In particular, the tendency for a new generation of filmmakers to
shoot on mobile phones has led to a number of works produced in a vertical (portrait format). Initially Editorial Board
dismissed as content “shot the wrong way”, vertical videos have proliferated in the exhibition
platforms provided by YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites. This article examines the Home
trend for shooting in a vertical mode, the material markers of ‘authenticity’ this mode appears to lend Past Issues
to its audio-visual content, and the effect of circulating this material in a context where other users
State of Play
can ‘police’ videos for bad practice. It will focus, in particular on how these aspects interact with the
different mediations of authenticity that emerge from new screen technologies amongst the ongoing Submissions
contingency of media forms.
A video version of this essay is available at this link: https://vimeo.com/99499627
CATEGORIES
Select Category
2 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
ARCHIVES
Select Month
RECENT POSTS
Read, Watch, Listen: A

commentary on eye tracking
and moving images – Tim J.
Smith
Politicizing Eye tracking

Studies of Film – William
The “CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Fertilizer Plant Explosion Near Waco, Texas” video on YouTube
Brown
In 2013, a video entitled “CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Fertilizer Plant Explosion Near Waco, Texas” was uploaded
Our Sherlockian Eyes: the
to YouTube. It records the 17th April ammonium nitrate explosion at the West Fertilizer Company Storage and
Surveillance of Vision – Sean
Distribution Facility from the perspective of an observer who is seated in a car beyond the perimeter of the
Redmond, Jodi Sita and Kim
plant. One of the aesthetic considerations that most clearly signals that it was recorded by an ‘everyday’ user
Vincs
is its use of vertical framing (the production of moving images in a portrait mode). Due in part to the
proliferation of mobile phone cameras, which record in a vertical mode when the phone is held upright, From Subtitles to SMS: Eye
vertical videos have begun to circulate widely on YouTube and other social media sites. Because they depart Tracking, Texting and Sherlock
from the professional standard of horizontal composition, vertical videos are commonly perceived to be shot – Tessa Dwyer
by amateur users rather than professional filmmakers. They tend to become known to a wider audience only
Subtitles on the Moving Image:
when distributed as viral videos and/or they are picked up by traditional news channels as alternatives to
an Overview of Eye Tracking
professional news footage.[1] Similar to many newsworthy vertical videos, the vertical framing in the
3 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
“Fertilizer Plant” iterates a sense of authenticity: the vertical mode’s association with amateur users suggests Studies – Jan Louis Kruger,
an everyday user providing unmediated witness to events as they occur rather than a professional filmmaker Agnieszka Szarkowska and
involved in staging and careful composition.[2] Although the relationship between authenticity and aesthetic Izabela Krejtz
configurations is always contingent upon historical, social and cultural uses of media, in cases such as this,
vertical framing emphasises the potential for new media technologies to be used for capturing the ‘moment’
and emphasising the object of observation rather than traditional aesthetic concerns. At the same time that
META
the “Fertilizer Plant” video breaks with a hundred year plus tradition of displaying moving-images in a
horizontal, or landscape, format, it signals some interlinked debates around authenticity, aesthetics and new Log in
media technologies that are currently being worked through in the context of a new media backdrop where
Entries RSS
moving image screens proliferate to a greater extent than ever before and in increasingly diverse
configurations (for example, Manovich 2001, 94; Friedberg 2009, 6; Verhoeff 2012; Casetti 2011). Within Comments RSS
this context, I will discuss how vertical media generates possibilities for a new, increasingly flexible audio-
visual environment in the early twenty-first century and how the use of a seemingly ‘amateur’ mode of WordPress.org
framing raises issues around concepts of authenticity and aesthetic norms.[3]
Although YouTube has an idiosyncratic and diverse range of material on its site (that ranges from HD video
and 3D enabled films to stop motion animation and pixelated phone videos) the “Fertilizer Plant” video
exemplifies what has become known as the YouTube video aesthetic: an audiovisual object that expresses
user-generated content through an amateur rather than professional appearance (Cubitt 2008, 45; Burgess
and Green 2009a, 90; Müller 2009, 136).[4] This particular video’s affective power lies in the way that it
combines its amateur appearance with an explosive event that is more akin to the pyrotechnic effects of a
blockbuster action film. The spontaneity of the blast combines with the realisation that there are observers in
the car who are perilously close to the fireball at the Plant. It is not unique in this regard as various YouTube
videos capture spectacular ‘real life’ events but it is distinct from the many mundane domestic amateur films
that circulate on YouTube.[5] At the same time, the shocking impact of the video’s events are not wholly due
to its content but are also supported by aesthetic configurations that indicate to the viewer the events were
4 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
not staged and the observers in the car were ‘true’ witnesses to the explosion. In no preferred order, these
aesthetic configurations operate in the following ways: the slight shake from the hand held position indicates
a human observer and, in this particular video, the observer is evident through the display of the filmmaker
in the car’s side mirror; the view of the filmmaker makes it clear the video is filmed on a mobile phone, an
amateur recording device notable for its spontaneous filming potential; the lack of staged lighting or artificial
sets combines with a lack of cuts to express a type of ‘unmediated witness’ to the events that unfold; the wind
buffering the microphone on the mobile camera reminds us of a recording device that is present; the lack of
closure at the end of the film (as we struggle to know whether the invisible but presumably present members
of the car are okay[6]) colludes with a number of open media texts that circulate somewhat anonymously
online.[7]
Additional to all of these factors is the use of vertical framing. Beyond merely suggesting an amateur user,
the vertical video gestures powerfully to a subjective human observer behind the camera. It suggests a person
who has a mobile phone, close to hand, and has initiated the camera without changing their normal bodily
hold upon that technological device. Even though mobile phones such as the Nokia C6were designed to
encourage users to hold them in a horizontal alignment, most camera-enabled phones, particularly the new
generation of iPhone and Android-based smart phones, are configured to operate primarily in a vertical
alignment. In this way, use of a vertical filming mode reinforces the filmmakers’ personal touch as well as a
sense of immediacy and presence within the act of filming. These components contrast with the seemingly
impersonal viewpoints created by virtual cameras in CGI compositions, in which no filmmaker could be
present such as shots high above Earth or shots passing through the walls of buildings (Brooker 2009; Jones
2013; Purse 2013). At a time when visual manipulation tools make it increasingly impossible to identify
which visual objects are a ‘faithful’ record of an event and which are staged, vertical framing suggests
(whether truthfully or not[8]) that no such manipulation has taken place.[9]
This type of aesthetic positioning of a real life event is not without historical precedence. In his discussion of
the use of camcorder footage in documentary and news broadcasts towards the end of the twentieth century,
5 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Jon Dovey notes that
the low grade video image has become the privileged form of TV ‘truth telling’, signifying authenticity
and an indexical reproduction of the real world; indexical in the sense of presuming a direct and
transparent correspondence between what is in front of the camera lens and its taped representation.
Secondly, the camcorder text has become the form that most relentlessly insists upon a localised,
subjective and embodied account of experience. Finally, the video text has become the form that
represents better than any other the shifting perimeters of the public and the private. Video texts shot on
lightweight camcorders uniquely patrol, re-produce and penetrate the boundaries between the individual
subject and the public, material world. (2000, 55)
Mobile phone footage offers the most recent iteration of this context, demonstrating, on the one hand,
historical continuity whereby technology serves rather than creates desires for seemingly authentic material
that mixes the public and the private and, on the other hand, the potential for new technologies to reinforce
and renew the embodied relationship between filmmaker, text and viewer (Hjorth 2006, 2). It is in this
context that Max Schleser has discussed the way in which the mobile phone, operating as a hand-held
recording device, presents opportunities to “construct personal narratives and representations of self” (2012,
400; see also Hjorth 2006). Similarly, Gavin Wilson notes “such films repeatedly reference the body and
sensory perception, evoking the sense of what objects feel like as we look at them, as objects and as images”
(2012, 68). In each case, these possibilities are contingent upon the extent to which the mobile technology
continues to reiterate the presence of its user and the extent to which the technology is upgraded so that its
images are no longer discernible from professional footage. In an era in which YouTube offers to stabilise
uploaded videos, phones increasingly offer HD settings, and readily available editing software allows the
addition of professional levels of colour grading and sound mixes, it is not always possible to view the traces
of an amateur and/or embodied user within the footage. However, in its current manifestation, a vertical
framing mode cannot be subsumed within professional filmmaking practice. Apart from the fact that there is
not a body of professional vertical works for the new vertical piece to join, few professional screens exist for
6 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
its exhibition and so YouTube and mobile screens remain its natural home.
When exhibited on the mobile screen, it is possible to

see that the vertical mode articulates a conflation of
audiovisual technologies: the distinction between
capture and display devices (Wilson 2012). Since the
earliest motion-picture cameras, which had the dual
Figure 1. YouTube offers a range of configurations to function of capturing images on film and then replaying
help professionalise the appearance of videos that film in a projector mode, there has been the ability
to use cameras as both recording and display devices.
Nonetheless, the speed with which digital devices such as the mobile phone (and increasingly the tablet) can
replay images recorded by the camera leads to a sense of immediacy which couples the camera device to its
screening function. Immediate playback can lead to forms of intimate encounters between the device, text
and viewer. At the same time, the current novelty of vertical framing emphasises how the coupling of mobile
filming/display device with filmmaker/viewer create unique convergences that are not available in
traditional media.
While this framing mode can be understood productively as a new iteration of digital vernacular practice,
unease with its appropriation of moving image capture/screen technology has appeared. Vertical videos
operate in a context whereby new technologies and their users do not function in isolation but are, instead,
conditioned by networked, discursive, peer practice that is highly visible in contemporary, Internet-oriented,
society:
The instant and permanent visibility and availability of social peers (and the permanent exposure of
their content-related activities) enable the instant and permanent social control of exposed activities and
connect the semipublic-mediated space with the private place of home. In addition, the convergent
nature of the platform (i.e. the permanent and straightforward possibility to receive, post and repost
7 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
various media) lowers barriers for the participation in content and at the same time brings the text right
next to the negotiations of its value. (Macek 2013, 298-9)
The negotiation of the value of vertical videos has been particularly prevalent on YouTube, one of the main
exhibition platforms for vertical media. The most visible debate on this topic has been conducted through and
in relation to a video that appeared in June 2012, “Vertical Video Syndrome—A PSA.” The video uses a highly
comic parody of United States style Public Service Announcements (PSA) to explain to audiences why
shooting in a vertical mode is incorrect. It makes statements ranging from the technical, “vertical videos
happen when you hold your camera the wrong way,” to the technological, “while you can turn a picture, you
can’t really turn a video … Motion pictures have always been horizontal. Televisions are horizontal.
Computer screens are horizontal” and the biological “People’s eyes are horizontal.” It has gathered a
significant number of views (4.3 million at the time of writing) and pages of comments on YouTube as well as
repeated ‘shares’ throughout social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
8 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
“Vertical Video Syndrome—A PSA”
Other, similar videos have been produced such as “Turn Your Phone! (Vertical Video PSA)” in July 2013 and
“Turn Your Phone! (‘No Scrubs’ parody with Andrew Huang, DailyGrace, Hannah Hart, Soundlyawake)” in
June 2013. Both are set to music: the former portrays a young man, showing various people filming on their
mobile phones, how to turn their camera “the correct way” and the latter shows a female singer explaining
why videos should be shot in a landscape mode. The videos are entertaining and light-hearted but perpetuate
a number of aesthetic ideas surrounding the way in which new camera technologies, particularly the camera
phone, should be regulated.
Foremost in their claims is a normalisation of the

landscape format as somehow biologically informed and
historically pervasive. With regards to the biological
argument, originally initiated in the “Vertical Video
Syndrome” video, the claim that “people’s eyes are
horizontal [sic]” has had a particular resonance with
viewers providing comments on YouTube and has been
repeated regularly in other Internet discussion sites
Figure 2. “Turn Your Phone! (‘No Scrubs’ parody with such as Twitter. In the first instance, this statement
Andrew Huang, DailyGrace, Hannah Hart,
Soundlyawake)” ignores a lengthy history of recorded images with roots
in the camera obscura whereby “the camera obscura,
with its monocular aperture, became a more prefect terminus for a cone of vision, a more perfect incarnation
of a single point than the awkward binocular body of the human subject” (Crary 1992, 53; see also Friedberg).
Efforts in the nineteenth century to overcome this problem resulted in obsessive attempts by stereoscopic
photographers such as David Brewster and John F. Mascher to create two-camera apparatuses that would
exactly mimic the eyes’ relations and retinas (Silverman 1993; Pietrobruno 2011). Similarly, a number of
twentieth century stereoscopic filmmakers have been equally determined to provide orthoscopic views that
9 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
exactly replicate the human field of perception (Lipton 1982, 134). The failure for their experiments to take
hold as the dominant way of producing photographic images points to the extent to which biological
determinism and photographic reproduction have only limited interest for audiences. Even IMAX screens that
are designed to exceed the boundaries of human peripheral vision operate within a rectangular frame that is
distinct from the seemingly unbounded scope of human vision, particularly with the eye’s ability to focus on
and narrow in on a range of different fields. Moreover, there is the problematic assumption embedded in the
statement about horizontal eyes that a person must have full vision in both eyes in order to appreciate
moving images.
The extent to which horizontal moving-images are historically pervasive is also often emphasised in
discussions of vertical framing to the detriment of a more nuanced historical approach that takes in to
account the lengthy history of diverse visual culture. Although visual culture has produced art in a variety of
forms (square, circular, oval, portrait rectangle, landscape rectangle) and across different media,
moving-image production has been mainly confined to a landscape rectangular format that is most commonly
found in either a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. Yet, as John Belton notes, even when W. K. L Dickson and the
Lumière Brothers popularised the 4:3 35mm film format during cinema’s development, there was no obvious
technological precedent for this standard. Photography in the nineteenth century had a range of aspect ratios
and shapes (square, circular, rectangular) and was not standardised into a similar 4:3 aspect ratio until the
twentieth century, after the development of cinema. Similarly, nineteenth century hand-painted lanternslides
came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Thus,
there is nothing “natural” about these formats. They do not seem to have grown ‘organically’ out of some
prior medium of representation. Nor do they initially appear to be automatic consequences of the
invention process. At the same time, they were not quite arrived at arbitrarily. (Belton 1992, 18)
The technological conditions that demanded effective ease of reproduction during cinema’s global
development means it is hardly surprising that a rectangular, landscape format was arrived at but it is,
10 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
paradoxically, the non-arbitrary nature of technological development that gave rise to alternatives to the
landscape mode. One such alternative arose during the development of stereoscopic (3D) cameras. An early
problem was that the desire to produce separate left and right eve views for stereoscopic footage resulted in
the need for two cameras and two projectors in order to film and display footage. The added expense and
difficulty in synchronising footage meant that it was desirable to develop cameras that could simultaneously
record the left and right eye image on one filmstrip. The result was cameras such as the16mm Bolex camera
which split the horizontal frame in two and recorded left and right eye images on each half of the frame.
When played back, the projector was focused using a projection lens with polarising filters in order to overlay
the two halves of the frame into a singular, vertical, stereoscopic image on a vertical screen. Unsurprisingly,
the need for a vertical screen at a time when standard screens were horizontal meant that this technology
reached an end point in amateur users while professional 3D filmmakers developed systems that would work
in a traditional landscape mode (Hayes 1989; Zone 2007). Nonetheless, important stereoscopic
documentation of the twentieth century did take place in a vertical mode, such as the Co-operative Wholesale
Society’s documentary on 1950s Britain in Co-op 3-D Film (1952).[10]
More recently advertising displays in transport facilities such as underground stations and airports have
begun displaying moving-image content on vertical screens. In the London Underground, for example, the
numerous escalators carrying passengers from platforms to exits, and vice versa, have vertical screens placed
on their walls. Similarly, in Glasgow airport there are a number of vertical screens next to the arrivals and
departures screens that show moving-image advertisements in a vertical frame. The architecture of these
spaces means that horizontal screens would be inappropriate and so advertisers have developed vertical
moving-image content (often in the form of short animations or brief live action scenes, for example “Clarins
Vertical LED TV.” In each of the aforementioned examples of vertical filmmaking and display, there is
nothing arbitrary about the decision to place or view moving-images in a portrait format. Instead, they
remain tentative examples of what new screen cultures might be able to offer in terms of aesthetic
experimentation. While fixed screens will always require that content is created in order to match its
11 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
intended display, the greatest change in twenty-first century screen culture is the portability and malleability
of screens on offer. At this time tablets, mobile phones and other portable screens are limited to rectangular
frames but the ability to turn this frame into either portrait or landscape mode means that moving image
content can be configured depending on which framing possibility best suits the subject being filmed.[11]
Attention to how vertical framing suits the ergonomic

conditions of the filming device and the subject matter
means that vertical videos can be understood more as a
form of vernacular creativity than an aesthetic error in
filmmaking modes. Examples of vertical videos that
have been posted on YouTube and Facebook often
suggest a hasty reach for the camera and opportunistic
filming decision (adding to the sense that they
reproduce unmediated, ‘authentic’ moments in the
filmmakers life). This accounts, in part, for how the
Figure 3. Departure and advertisement screens at embodied hold on a mobile device translates into the
Glasgow Airport framing mode. However, this practice does not mean
that the filmmaker is inconsiderate of the visual field
that the vertical mode will capture. Instead, certain subjects encourage a vertical mode. For example when a
single human is the focus of the video, they are often framed to take up the central sections of the screen as
is the case of the Irish dancer performing on top of a train’s table in “Incredible Set Dancing & Trad Session
on Dublin Train to Galway” or the man jumping on a trampoline in “Epic trampoline flip FAIL dog attack.” A
type of portrait framing for subjects directly addressing the camera is also seen. This is evident in the New
Zealand Red Cross’ addressthestress.com website where, amongst others, Olympic rower Mahé Drysdale
speaks about how to deal with stressful situations in a vertical video aimed at New Zealand youths. When the
architecture of space means that a vertical corridor of action predominates, portrait framing is also used. For
12 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
example, the interiors of trains, subway cars and other carriages or building corridors and stairways are
frequently framed in a portrait format. This can be seen in the interior of a light rail car during “Light Rail
Bushido Blade! It’s all fun and games until someone pulls out a sword” and during a shot of dogs descending
down a staircase in “Puppy teaching Puppy to go down stairs! SO cute!—ORIGINAL VIDEO!.” Unprofessional
videos such as the series of students performing trapeze moves on the Aerial Edge Facebook page
unashamedly use a portrait format in order to provide as much detail of the moving bodies as possible in
videos that are both celebratory of the students’ skills and informative for those trying to see how the moves
are undertaken.
Finally, a number of smart phone applications, such as Talking Tom Cat, present characters in a portrait
format that users can animate and share on sites such as YouTube, resulting in numerous vertical videos such
as “Talking Ben and Talking Tom” that has had over 9 million views. In each case, the vertical mode frames
events in ways that suit the subject matter.
13 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
The extent to which this mode, and its revelation of a

new type of digital vernacular, will be accepted is
dependent upon the mechanisms of highly scrutinised
exhibition environments. Although many mobile phone
videos are made to be viewed only by the filmmaker or
distributed only to personal contacts, the new ‘sharing’
Figure 4. From left to right: “Incredible Set Dancing &
Trad Session on Dublin Train to Galway,” “Epic features on most smart phones means that filmmakers
trampoline flip FAIL dog attack,” “Puppy teaching are encouraged to distribute videos immediately via
Puppy to go down stairs! SO cute!—ORIGINAL
VIDEO!” and “Talking Ben and Talking Tom” Internet platforms. By returning to Jakub Macek’s point
that the visibility and connectivity of peers mediates the
production of content in online spaces, it is possible to recognise the ways in which a negotiation of vertical
media’s newfound place is occurring through and beyond that of the Vertical Video PSA videos. Not only are
the PSAs highly visible on YouTube, they also reflect and contribute to comments that spread across a range
of Internet forums, websites and social media sites. In the first instance, commentators often repeat the main
claims in the “Vertical Video Syndrome” video: vertical videos happen when you hold your camera the wrong
way/while you can turn a picture, you can’t really turn a video/motion pictures have always been horizontal/
televisions are horizontal/ computer screens are horizontal/people’s eyes are horizontal. In the second
instance, they frequently provide links to the “Vertical Video Syndrome” video (that has outpaced the other
PSA videos in terms of popularity) which further increases the visibility of the claims in the original video.
Examples of this taking place can be seen in websites such as Provideocontent where a post reiterates that
“the screens we watch video on are horizontal” followed by the Vertical Video Syndrome video in an
embedded link. Similarly, a search of Twitter on 30 October 2013 found more than a dozen tweets, within a
24-hour time period, in different languages, posting links to the Vertical Video Syndrome video with
comments such as “protect yourself! Keep yourself from shooting vertical,” “shooting vertical video on a
smartphone? You’re doing it wrong” and “a very serious problem: Vertical Video Syndrome.” When one user,
Mike Griffith, started a thread on Twitter saying “there should be a global campaign to get people shooting
14 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
video on a smartphone to hold it in landscape” the reply was “why don’t the cool phone maker peeps just do a
pop-up alert telling you ‘Turn it round, turn it round’.” Subsequent tweets noted that YouTube and Google’s
capture applications have functions that already do so. Further addressing this issue, an app for the Apple
Store called Horizon was developed that would similarly discourage users from filming in a vertical mode
(Liszewski 2014).
This type of technological reminder can be considered in light of Michel de Certeau’s (1988) description of
strategies and tactics, whereby institutions and figures of authority put in place strategies for the correct use
of consumer products while users often perform tactics that negotiate and change this intended use. The
introduction of software that conditions how users may film content on mobile cameras suggests a reiteration
of strategy in the face of vertical video tactics. However, there is not merely a simple division between those
who control products and everyday users. Instead, there is a complex interplay at work between technology
manufacturers, everyday users, and their peer networks. Following Pierre Bourdieu, Jakub Macek notes that
through participation, we establish our common interest in shared content and so we ensure that our
cultural capital (and thus our values, preferences, tastes and opinions) and that of those included in our
social circles are compatible, that we are surrounded by ‘proper people’ with ‘proper interests’ and that
our textual interests and pleasures are consistent with the rest of our habitus. (2013, 298)
In the vertical video context, filmmakers are often operating within peer networks that are attuned to
performing correct consumer operation of filming equipment that has been embedded in and reinforced by
traditional media. Yet a tension emerges between the cultural habitus in which users are expected to conform
to standard horizontal norms and a parallel, embodied technological habitus which encourages users to hold
their phone in the vertical position that non-video applications and other content encourages.[12] Although
these different habitus represent the meeting of contradictory strategies (media institutions indicating the
horizontal framing is correct, hardware manufacturing that encourages a vertical display), their incongruence
is overlooked in discussions of vertical video. Instead of recognising the way users are tactically engaging
15 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
with media technology in new ways, the assumption in the Vertical Video PSAs and related comments on
social network sites is that filmmakers shooting in a vertical mode do so because they are amateur users who
do not know better and/or do not have the skills and training to conform to professional norms.
Paradoxically, by distancing vertical videos as amateur, commentators reiterate the likely authenticity of
vertical videos as unmediated documentation. In contexts where authenticity is favoured, such as news sites
and certain realms of social media, vertical videos are thus given additional value.
The vertical videos discussed thus far include many or all of the traits discussed in relation to the “Fertilizer
Plant” video and in this way demonstrate amateur practice. At the same time, their successful circulation
(23.3 million views for the “Fertilizer Plant” video at the time of writing) means that they are often able to
gain more exposure and recognition than the wide variety of professional filmmaking practitioners who put
portions of their work on YouTube. It is not surprising, then, that tensions arise when these two groups
operate within a shared exhibition platform. Significant to this context is the extent to which blogs, posts,
tweets and videos calling for an end to vertical video are often from non-professional filmmakers or
otherwise liminal media practitioners. With regards to this type of behaviour amongst filmmakers on
YouTube, Eggo Müller notes that similar processes take place when amateur and professional filmmakers
interact through videos and forums dedicated to ‘upskilling’ the average YouTube user. He notes that a quality
discourse prevails whereby relatively conservative adherence to traditional filmmaking norms is upheld but
he also states that it is impossible to delineate a clear boundary between amateurs and professionals within
this process. Instead,
users with different backgrounds and interests in YouTube contribute to and maintain this quality
discourse. Full, semi-, pre- and post-professionals use YouTube to share and promote their knowledge,
and dabblers, novices and amateurs contribute to the same discourse through their questions and
comments. As opposed to the era of mass media—with producers on the one side and consumers on the
other – there is a diverse field of positions in the space of participation YouTube creates. (2009, 136)
16 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
In this context, the efforts to police a portrait framing practice become a means for some users to distinguish
themselves as knowledgeable and attuned to the importance of visual aesthetics at a time when sites such as
YouTube offer a type of anarchic free-for-all. Thus, conformity to a perceived set of professional norms is
“exposed, articulated and reproduced in a performative interaction” (Macek 2013, 299).
However, for every desire to be valued by and incorporated into a social milieu there are often antithetical
desires to be visibly unique (Macek 2013, 299). This means that, aside from advertising professionals who
have been contracted to produce vertical moving-images for billboard display, there are a small, but growing
number of media practitioners advocating a portrait mode in order to produce distinct aesthetic effects. As
will be discussed, their work is supported by digital viewing platforms, but there are antecedents for their
work in experimental filmmaking practice such as Paolo Gioli’s vertical Film Stenopeico (1973/81/89),
Commutazione con mutazione (1969) and L’operatore perforato (1979) (Bordwell 2009) andBill Viola’s “The
Messenger” and “The Crossing” (Young 1997).[13] Building on the challenges these experimental films pose
to an understanding of traditional compositional strategies, some groups of digitally oriented filmmakers are
using the exhibition platform Vimeo to showcase experiments in vertical framing.[14] Started in 2010, the
main focal point for this activity is the Tallscreen group that provides a space to upload short vertical films.
Although not directly stated, it is implied that there is a concern with distinguishing these works from the
amateur efforts being produced elsewhere and to this end there are calls to use High Definition SLR cameras
or equivalents in order to “avoid the non aesthetic Jello Effect.”
Elsewhere on Vimeo, artist Gregory Gutenko has uploaded versions of his work such as “Rail Poem” (2012)
and “Orientation Video” (2012) that have been exhibited in a portrait aspect ratio in gallery space. The
former focuses on motion through landscapes, often with an emphasis on movement that follow the narrow
borders of railway tracks. Careful editing and manipulation of images means that various parts of what the
camera has captured are morphed together and laid over one another within individual shots. The latter uses
an upside down camera to produced “upside down” images that then frame media devices such as a
television displaying their own images “upside down” which in turn appear the correct way up to viewers. In
17 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
each case, portrait formatting concentrates attention on movement and objects in the screen space that
would no longer be central in the same way were the frame to be widened. In a similar manner, Christoph A.
Geiseler’s documentary Curry Power (2012) (http://www.verticalvideos.com/index.html) experiments with
vertical framing. Like the Vimeo Tallscreen group, Geiseler narrates his reasons for using the portrait format.
“Musicians on a stage, runway models, train-tracks disappearing into the distance, close-up portraits,
skyscrapers and trees beg for a vertical video to capture their inherent beauty: the essence of their form, flow
and function is vertical.” Like the filmmakers mentioned before, the attention given to his practice sets his
work apart from the vertical videos that are deemed and contextualised as amateur content. In this way,
discourses of authenticity are less apparent but bridging the artistic and unmediated documentation contexts
for vertical filming is a film by musician Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips group. In 2013 he produced A Year
In The Life Of Wayne’s Phone, a film that premiered at the SXSW festival in March of that year. Filmed on his
iPhone, A Year in the Life of Wayne, took vertical moving-images shot by Coyne and displayed them three at a
time, side by side on an horizontal screen. Noted as a somewhat jumbled assemblage of footage from Coyne’s
personal and professional life, the film captured the unruly nature of unplanned and hastily thrown together
YouTube videos while simultaneously elevating them to a status worthy of a film festival audience (even
though reviews of the festival screening were not always complimentary [Miller 2013; Saldana 2013]).
18 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Heaven (2013)
In my own experiments with colleagues at Victoria University of Wellington, I have been able to contribute to
short films that take into consideration these vertical concerns as well as how our films can be exhibited. In
our first short film “Heaven” (2013), we wanted to make use of new DIY media technologies and so we shot
the film on an HTC mobile phone and in a portrait format. This process posited its own creative possibilities
that enriched our sense of aesthetic experience.
We often found ourselves visualising sequences in a horizontal format as we

were accustomed to working within that framing but then had to recalibrate
our mental images as we composed individual shots. However, we found that
the focus on human subjects within our script (essentially a story of two
idiosyncratic male characters portrayed over a week’s timeframe in
19 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Wellington, New Zealand) was supported by vertical framing and we were

able to utilise space in ways that we hadn’t previously conceived of. For
example, the opening shot is of a plane flying overhead on its way to land at
Wellington airport. The vertical framing allows the underbelly of the plane to
take up the majority of screen space, intonating the visceral and dizzying
feeling that occurs when one watches a plane fly overhead. At various points
in the film a two-shot is constructed between the male characters. They do
Figure 5: Poster for Christoph
A. Geiseler’s Curry Power not speak to one another and so it was useful to frame their bodies vertically
(2012) in a way that emphasised the subtle interactions between them that take
place through whole body positioning. While the film could have been shot
with horizontal framing and the essence of the story would have remained, the details of our composition and
the way in which this framed the relationship between the characters would have been altered. Knowing that
the eventual distribution for the film would take place on YouTube and the film would ideally be viewed on
portable vertical screens such as smart phones and tablets, we also took into consideration Andreas Treske’s
questions concerning developing visual work for small screens: “how does the development of smaller
screens and online video influence how we compose and create images? How is the reproduction of images
influenced by its assumed viewing environment? How is it related to the viewing situations of its audience if
these are not the cinema theatre or the television set with its attached couch?” (2008, 215). For this reason
we attempted to compose bold dynamic shots that suited vertical framing for small screen viewing.
While the aforementioned vertical works have mainly used live action
footage, there have also been experiments with other media. The
Alicewinks (alicewinks.com) project created by David Neal originated in a
desire to animate the various illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland (1865) that appeared in different publications
of the text around the beginning of the twentieth century. Because these
20 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
illustrations were mainly in a portrait format, the animation was conceived

of in this way and Alicewinks follows a variety of different visual versions
of Alice as she moves through the narrative of the original book, all within
a vertical framing. The story of the work’s journey from production to
exhibition is illustrative of the changing landscape of screen technologies
and the way in which traditional formats retain a hold on the way new
Figure 6: “Heaven” (2013) media works can be conceived and distributed. Due to its feature film
length, Neal initially approached Apple’s iTunes in order to distribute it
through their Movie store but because of its vertical format Apple responded that it could not be distributed as
a movie but might be better distributed through their App Store. The App Store stated that the piece was not
sufficiently interactive and suggested returning to the Movie Store. Unable to resolve the issue between either
of these stores, Neal eventually found a place for Alicewink’s distribution in Apple’s iBookstore. For many
viewers, its placement here means that it will initially be perceived as a book yet its ability to provide vertical
moving images in tablets and e-book means that its audiences will be exposed to portrait format moving
images.
In 2008, Lev Manovich asked: “given that the significant percentage of user-generated content either follows
the templates and conventions set up by professional entertainment industry, or directly re-uses
professionally produced content … does this mean that people’s identities and imagination are now even
more firmly colonized by commercial media than in the twentieth century?” (36; see also van Dijck 2009) On
the one hand, the continued policing of vertical videos and the desires to prove that there are correct,
inflexible ways of framing content confirms the extent to which media traditions retain a stronghold on
aesthetic practice. On the other hand, the proliferation of user-filmed vertical videos on YouTube and social
networking sites suggests vertical framing may find its place as part of a new digital vernacular. Furthermore,
the small but steady uptake of digital vertical content in animation, advertising billboards, gallery works and
short films on Vimeo, suggests that new screen environments are creating new aesthetic practice. Manovich
21 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
goes on to draw upon Michel de Certeau to suggest
a city’s layout, signage, driving and parking rules and maps are strategies created by governmental and
corporate interests. The ways an individual is moving through the city, taking shortcuts, wandering
aimlessly, navigating through favourite routes and adopting others are tactics. In other words, an
individual can’t physically reorganize the city but she can adopt itself to her needs by choosing how she
moves through it. (2008, 37)
I would suggest that, within this analogy, vertical framing is more akin to squatting: it is the occupation of a
space and a way of undertaking habitation that is related to the normal use of this space but in new,
unauthorised ways.
As this article has sought to prove, there is no inherent technological determinant that means moving-images
must be displayed in a horizontal format yet there are technological concerns that make portrait and
landscape modes more or less advantageous depending, firstly, on the screen environment in which they are
to be exhibited, and secondly, on the type of content that filmmakers wish to portray. To return to the
“Fertilizer Plant” video, its vertical framing acts as a signifier of authenticity which is useful in its claim to
represent a real-time, non-manipulated event. Other videos are able to use the same framing in order to
tactically present their own version of events. This mode is, of course, open to be co-opted by commercial
media in order to simulate a visual signifier of legitimate amateur content (in much the same way the shaky
camera and camcorder-style white-balance were co-opted by The Blair Witch Project [Daniel Myrick and
Eduardo Sánchez, 1999] and Cloverfield [Matt Reeves, 2008]). To exemplify this potential, comedian Ricky
Gervais produces popular comedy shows (mainly for television) in traditional horizontal framing. At the same
time, he maintains a Facebook page which frequently hosts vertical videos filmed in his home space such as
video of him in his bath or a video of his cat. The vertical framing suggests these are unmediated moments in
his domestic life but their playful nature also suggests that Gervais is using them to blur the boundary
between his real-life and on-screen persona in a way that is typical of his comedy work. In this case, there is
22 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
a highly media-literate public personality drawing upon an amateur framing technique in order to add value
to the videos that he produces.
In the contexts discussed in this article, the diversity in filming possibilities has not really changed, as it has
always been possible for a filmmaker to turn a camera on its side for dramatic effect and the vertical mode is
already appearing amongst traditional media when, for example, television news programs insert vertical
footage of an event in a way that suggests everyday persons were present to witness it. What have changed
are exhibition possibilities. In the first instance, readily available digital projectors and large digital monitors
make it possible for the art gallery film and advertising content to exhibit vertical images. In the second
instance, the hand held screening devices make the possibility for filming vertically ubiquitous. Detractors of
a vertical format are right to note that vertical footage will normally default to a small image within a larger
screen when displayed on horizontal televisions and computer monitors but these thoughts fail to foresee the
present and the future of new screen technologies in which “a variety of screens—long and wide and square,
large and small, flat and fat, composed of grains composed of pixels, lit by projected light, cathode-ray tube,
plasma, LCD—all compete for our attention without any convincing arguments about hegemony” (Friedberg
2009, 7).[15] In this environment there will likely be the continuation of amateurs producing vertical works
as a type of vernacular practice while there are also open possibilities for media professionals to engage with
this framing mode in new and dynamic ways.
References
Andén-Papadopoulos, Kari. 2013. “Media Witnessing and the ‘crowd-Sourced Video Revolution’.” Visual
Communication 12 (3): 341-357.
Arthur, Paul. 1993. “Jargons of authenticity (three American moments).” In Theorizing Documentary, edited
by Michael Renov, 108-134. London and New York: Routledge.
23 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Belton, John. 1992. Widescreen Cinema. London: Harvard University Press.
Bordwell, David. 2009. “Paolo Gioli’s Vertical Cinema.” Davidbordwell.net/, August. Accessed November 26,
2013. http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/gioli.php.
Brooker, Will. 2009. “Camera-Eye, CG-Eye: Videogames and the ‘Cinematic’.” Cinema Journal 48 (3):
122-128.
Burgess, Jean, and Joshua Green. 2009a. “The Entreprenurial Vlogger: Participatory Culture Beyond the
Professional-Amateur Divide.” In The Youtube Reader, edited by Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau,
89-107. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden.
Burgess, Jean, and Joshua Green. 2009b. YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge: Polity.
Casetti, Francesco. 2011. “Back to the Motherland: The Film Theatre in the Postmedia Age.” Screen 52 (1):
1-12.
Crary, Jonathan. 1992. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century: On Vision
and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Cubitt, Sean. 2008. “Codecs and Capability.” In Video Vortex Reader: Responses to Youtube, edited by Geert
Lovink and Sabine Niederer, 45-52. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
de Certeau, Michel. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dovey, Jon. 2000. Freakshow First Person Media and Factual Television. London: Pluto Press.
Friedberg, Anne. 2009. The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft. London: MIT Press.
Griffiths, Mike. 2013. “There Should Be a Global Campaign to Get People Shooting Video on a Smartphone to
Hold It in Landscape.” @mrmikegriffiths, May 15. Archived November 12, 2013.
24 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Hayes, R. M. 1989. 3-D Movies: A History and Filmography of Stereoscopic Cinema. London: St James Press.
Hjorth, Larissa. 2006. “Being Mobile: In Between the Real and Reel.” Paper presented at Asian Pop and
Mobile Cultures Conference, Gwangju, October 28-29, 1-15. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://www.cct.go.kr
/data/acf2006/mobile/mobile_0101_Larissa%20Hjorth.pdf.
Jones, Nick. 2013. “Quantification and Substitution: The Abstract Space of Virtual Cinematography.”
Animation 8 (3): 253-266.
Lipton, Lenny. 1982. Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Liszewski, Andrew. 2014. “Brilliant, Overdue App Forces Your Phone to Take Horizontal Videos.” Gizmodo,
January 15. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://gizmodo.com/brilliant-overdue-app-forces-your-phone-to-take-
horizo-1501848420.
Macek, Jakub. 2013. “More than a Desire for Text Online Participation and the Social Curation of Content.”
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 19 (3): 295-302.
Maheshwari, Laya. 2014. “Angular Visions: Vertical Cinema at Rotterdam.” Filmmaker Magazine, January 28.
Accessed May 9, 2014. http://filmmakermagazine.com/84090-angular-visions-vertical-cinema-
at-rotterdam/#.U2xnmyjtAzI.
Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. London: MIT Press.
Manovich, Lev. 2008. “The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life.’’ In Video Vortex Reader: Responses to
Youtube, edited by Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer, 33-44. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
Miller, Jeff. 2013. “SXSW: Film About ‘A Year in the Life’ of Wayne Coyne’s Phone Is a Dizzying Spectacle.”
The Hollywood Reporter, March 14. Accessed November 27, 2013. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com
/news/sxsw-film-a-year-life-428693.
25 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Müller, Eggo. 2009. “Where Quality Matters: Discourses on the Art of Making a YouTube Video.” In The
Youtube Reader, edited by Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau, 126-140. Stockholm: National Library of
Sweden.
Pantti, Mervi, and Piet Bakker. 2009. “Misfortunes, Memories and Sunsets Non-Professional Images in
Dutch News Media.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 12 (5): 471-489.
Pietrobruno, Sheenagh. 2011. “The Stereoscope and the Miniature.” Early Popular Visual Culture 9 (3):
171-190.
Purse, Lisa. 2013. Digital Imaging in Popular Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Saldana, Mark. 2013. “2013 SXSW Review: A Year in the Life of Wayne’s Phone.” trueviewreviews.com,
March 26. Accessed May 9, 2014. http://trueviewreviews.com/2013-sxsw-review-a-year-in-the-life-of-
waynes-phone/.
Schleser, Max. 2012. “Collaborative Mobile Phone Filmmaking.” In Handbook of Participatory Video, edited
by Elizabeth-Jane Milne, Claudia Mitchell and Naydene De Lange, 397-411. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Silverman, Robert J. 1993. “The Stereoscope and Photographic Depiction in the 19th Century.” Technology
and Culture 34 (4): 729-756.
Tolson, Andrew. 2010. “A New Authenticity? Communicative Practices on YouTube.” Critical Discourse
Studies 7 (4): 277-289.
Treske, Andreas. 2008. “Detailing and Pointing.” In Video Vortex Reader: Responses to Youtube, edited by
Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer, 215-221. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
van Dijck, José. 2009. “Users like You? Theorizing Agency in User-Generated Content.” Media, Culture &
Society 31 (1): 41-58.
26 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Verhoeff, Nanna. 2012. Mobile Screens: The Visual Regime of Navigation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press.
Wilson, Gavin. 2012. “A Phenomenology of Reciprocal Sensation in the Moving Body Experience of Mobile
Phone Films.” Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image 3: 62-83.
Young, Lisa Jaye. 1997. “The Elemental Sublime.” Performing Arts Journal 19 (3): 65-71.
Zone, Ray. 2007. Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Notes
[1]For a related discussion of the way news sites are using user-filmed videos as a type of ‘media witnessing
based on an aesthetics of authenticity’ see Andén-Papadopoulos (2013).
[2] For a discussion of the way the unprofessional was associated with authenticity in factual documentary
video footage see Dovey (2000) and in photojournalism see Pantti and Bakker (2009).
[3] This article takes on and moves forward initial discussion of this concept outlined in Ross, Miriam and
Maddy Glen. “ Vertical Cinema: New Digital Possibilities” Rhizomes (forthcoming).
[4] There is a paradoxical public imagining of YouTube’s operation whereby YouTube seems to simultaneously
act as a transparent exhibition platform for professionally produced content (music videos, trailers, old
movies, high quality promotional videos) and a creative machine for engendering home-video style user
videos and their proliferation (Burgess and Green 2009b).
[5] For a discussion of the way YouTube content creators use ordinariness as a trope for suggesting
authenticity in vlogs see Tolson (2010).
27 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
[6] Although the YouTube page that hosts the video now has a description of who the filmmaker was and a
note that says he and the child that was in the car are okay, initially no such description was added and the
video was just one of the many videos uploaded to user zidyboby’s prolific channel.
[7]For a discussion of the way previous media texts, particularly 1960s Direct Cinema documentaries, have
used similar techniques to suggest unmediated and authentic representation see Arthur (1993).
[8]For example, the vertically framed YouTube video “Seeing her for the first time again,” purportedly
showing a man awakening from an operation and not recognizing his wife, was widely believed to be faked
(http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09
/10/the_man_with_amnesia_viral_video_may_be_a_hoax.html)
[9] Sites such as Tom Phillip’s http://istwitterwrong.tumblr.com/ features images and videos that have been
circulated by traditional news sites and social media sites as purportedly authentic representations of a
particular moment or event even as their veracity has been questioned.
[10] Artist Zoe Beloff has used this technology in recent years to make the critically acclaimed Shadow Land
or Light from the Other Side (2000) and Charming Augustine (2005), both of which are screened on a
portable, vertical screen maintained by Beloff.
[11] It is worth noting that new media applications such as Vine and Instagram produce moving image
content in a square format.
[12] The tablet offer an interesting case study in this regard as computer-similar tablets such as the iPad are
often seen used in a landscape mode whereas book-similar tablets such as the Kindle Fire are often seen used
in a portrait format. In both case, the tablet will be rotated depending on both the functions they are
performing (electronic books encourage portrait display, audio-visual content encourages landscape display)
and user preferences and habits.
28 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
[13] A more recent example would be the vertical films screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam
films that, while made with digital technologies, were printed on 35mm film (Maheshwari 2014).
[14] I would suggest that Vimeo and YouTube have complex complementary and competitive relationships
whereby Vimeo has emerged as a space for ‘artistic’ filmmakers who place emphasis on cinematic style
whereas YouTube simultaneously appeals to popular, mass audiences and extremely niche interest groups
that often have little concern with aesthetic tendencies.
[15]A playful installation, DVD Dead Drop vol.6: “Vertical Video”, by Aram Bartholl was commissioned by
MOMA New York to provide audiences with a DVD of amateur videos captured in a portrait format along with
instructions for adjusting a home theatre or other viewing environment to properly experience the works
(http://datenform.de/blog/vertical-video-dvd/)
B i o : Dr Miriam Ross is Lecturer in the Film Programme at Victoria University of Wellington. She is the author
of South American Cinematic Culture: Policy, Production, Distribution and Exhibition (2010), as well as
publications on film industries, stereoscopic media, film festivals and new digital technologies.
2
Like 20 Send
DIGITAL MEDIA/INTERNET FILM UNCATEGORIZED VOLUME 24 0 COMMENTS
← Animating Ephemeral Surfaces: Transparency, Attached To My Devices: Across Individual, Collective

Translucency and Disney’s World of Color — Kirsten and Panspectric worlds — John Farnsworth →
29 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
Moana Thompson
Also post on Facebook Posting as Miriam Ross ▾ Comment
Facebook social plugin
30 of 30 9/02/15 8:51 am
View publication stats

Miriam Ross Vertical Framing Article Refractory

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Miriam Ross Vertical Framing Article Refractory

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Miriam Ross Vertical Framing Article Refractory

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Vertical Framing: Authenticity and New Aesthetic Practice in Online Videos

Article · January 2014

Miriam Ruth Ross

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Get me outta here!

PAST ISSUES CONTACT

VERTICAL FRAMING: AUTHENTICITY AND NEW AESTHETIC PRACTICE IN

ONLINE VIDEOS — MIRIAM ROSS

A video version of this essay is available at this link: https://vimeo.com/99499627

Read, Watch, Listen: A

Politicizing Eye tracking

framing raises issues around concepts of authenticity and aesthetic norms.[3]

Jon Dovey notes that

When exhibited on the mobile screen, it is possible to

“Vertical Video Syndrome—A PSA”

Foremost in their claims is a normalisation of the

Attention to how vertical framing suits the ergonomic

The extent to which this mode, and its revelation of a

We often found ourselves visualising sequences in a horizontal format as we

Wellington, New Zealand) was supported by vertical framing and we were

illustrations were mainly in a portrait format, the animation was conceived

goes on to draw upon Michel de Certeau to suggest

Belton, John. 1992. Widescreen Cinema. London: Harvard University Press.

DIGITAL MEDIA/INTERNET FILM UNCATEGORIZED VOLUME 24 0 COMMENTS

← Animating Ephemeral Surfaces: Transparency, Attached To My Devices: Across Individual, Collective

Also post on Facebook Posting as Miriam Ross ▾ Comment

Facebook social plugin

You might also like