Tall Tales : Ancestry and Artistry of Vertical Video

• Main Author: Ulenius, Mats
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Filmvetenskap 2018
• Subjects: vertical video; portrait mode; media archaeology; history of film style; shot composition; Studies on Film; Filmvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-197567

Since the beginning of the 2010’s, consumers have increasingly picked up the habit of using smartphones to shoot and watch video in portrait mode – vertical video. The format has also spread to professional film making in the form of advertising, fiction film and other genres produced for viewing on vertically oriented screens – especially smartphone screens. This rise of the vertical format can be attributed to digital conversion and new social habits of video communication via social media; in other words, the so called digital – or mobile – revolution. However, neither vertical media nor vertical film is actually new. In this paper, a media archaeological approach is used to show that vertical media is as old as human art, and that audiences have enjoyed vertical moving images at least since the 1830’s. For example, many early optical images and the first television images in the 1920’s were vertical. This paper is an elaboration on an archaeology of vertical video, inspired by the methods of media archaeologists Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka and the visual arts perspective of Anne Friedberg. Apart from the ancestry of the vertical frame, this paper also includes an analysis of what is inside the tall frame – a study on vertical shot composition. Focusing on eleven short films in competition at the 2016 Vertical Film Festival near Sydney, the analysis focuses especially on camera movement, scale of shot and editing. Using formal style analysis, as well as statistical style analysis, this paper defines characteristics of vertical shot composition; these include a frequent use of both long shots and tilt shots, and a general experimental playfulness in shot composition and in editing. By tracing the ancestry of – and analyzing the artistry of – portrait mode video, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the vertical video format and its renewed popularity in recent years. === <p>Grade on the bachelor's thesis: A</p>