More and more often we’re seeing video that has been shot using a Smart Phone. Recently a customer brought me three hours of video to edit, footage that had been shot while on African safari using a Smart Phone.
Only about 25% of the footage had been shot in the landscape orientation — that is, with the long axis of the phone held horizontally. The rest had been shot with the long axis held vertically. Not only did all of the vertical footage have to be rotated 90%, but once rotated there are now black bars on either side of the image. Cutting from full screen (horizontal) to half-screen with black bars (vertical) creates an aesthetically unpleasant mess! Sometimes judicious cropping can be used to fill the screen with the vertical shots, but more often than not even HD resolution won’t allow the resultant picture to hold up well.
No question that Smart Phones produce stunning images, but like any tool the phone needs to be used properly to produce best results.
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