How to make a vertical video from horizontal footage

What you lose in the crop

A 9:16 window inside a 16:9 frame uses about a third of the width. From 1920 by 1080 footage, the window is about 608 pixels wide and 1080 tall. Exporting that at 1080 by 1920 means scaling it up, and it looks soft.

From 4K footage (3840 by 2160), the same window is about 1215 by 2160, which is more than a 1080 by 1920 export needs. If you know you will crop to vertical, film horizontal in 4K.

Film horizontal so it crops well

• Stay near the middle of the frame. A face at the far left edge forces an awkward crop.
• Leave some headroom so the crop has space above your head.
• Keep the action close to you. In a cooking demo, hold the pan up near your chest rather than at the edge of the counter.
• Don't put text or graphics at the sides of the horizontal frame. They will be cropped away.
• If two people share the shot, sit them close together.

Three ways to fill a vertical frame

Fill crops the picture until it fills the frame. This suits a talking head, as long as the crop follows the person.

Fit shows the whole picture with black bars above and below. Use it when everything in the wide shot matters, like a slide or two people far apart.

Blur shows the whole picture over a blurred, enlarged copy of itself. It fills the bars with color instead of black.

When to film vertical instead

If a video will only ever be posted as a Short or a Reel, film it vertical. You keep every pixel and frame the shot for the phone. Film horizontal when you want a wide version for YouTube as well, and crop the vertical ones out of it. A sales call recap that goes to LinkedIn and YouTube is a horizontal job. A quick kitchen tip for Reels is a vertical one.

The manual way

1. 01Create a new 9:16 sequence.
2. 02Drop in the clip and scale it up until it fills the frame.
3. 03Keyframe the position so the speaker stays in the window as they move.
4. 04Check every cut, because the speaker can be in a different place on each side of it.
5. 05Place captions inside the safe area.
6. 06Export at 1080 by 1920.

Why it is slow

Keyframing a crop by hand means watching every second of the video and nudging the frame each time the person leans or shifts. A talking head moves more than you think.

The Cutroom AI way

1. 01Drop your horizontal footage in on the Projects page.
2. 02Open the Format tab. Under Aspect, choose 9:16. 1:1, 4:5 and 16:9 are there too.
3. 03Under Framing, choose Fill, Fit or Blur. With Fill, the crop follows the face, and the face tracking runs on your device.
4. 04For a different framing, move the crop yourself or add zoom keyframes with “Add keyframe”.
5. 05Turn on “Punch in on jump cuts” if the cuts inside one take look jumpy.
6. 06In the Captions tab, set the position or drag the captions on the preview.
7. 07Export at 30 or 60 fps.

One recording, several formats

From one edit, “See versions” lays out finished versions made for TikTok, Reels, Shorts, YouTube, LinkedIn (4:5), X or square. When you filmed horizontally, one of them is a full-length 16:9 cut for YouTube, so you keep the wide version and get the vertical ones from the same footage.

Export resolution depends on the plan: 720p on Free, 1080p on Starter and up to 2160p (4K) on Pro.

Mistakes to avoid

• Cropping 1080p footage and expecting a sharp result.
• Fill on a shot of two people far apart. One of them will be cut off. Use Fit or Blur.
• Captions at the very bottom, under the app's buttons.
• Burning graphics into the horizontal edit first, then cropping. Add them after the crop.