Updated: September 10, 2026
Aspect ratios and reframing video for social and broadcast
The same video rarely works everywhere. A widescreen film that looks cinematic on a website becomes a tiny letterboxed strip on a phone held upright. A vertical clip made for stories looks wrong on a television. Aspect ratio, the shape of your frame, is one of the most practical decisions in post-production, and reframing footage for different platforms is now a routine part of delivery. Understanding it helps you plan a shoot and finish an edit that works across every screen.
The good news is that with a little foresight, one shoot can feed many formats. The trick is thinking about the different shapes before you lock the edit, not after.
The aspect ratios you will actually use
A handful of shapes cover almost everything you will deliver, and each has its natural home:
- 16:9 widescreen, the standard for websites, broadcast and most players.
- 9:16 vertical, built for phones and short-form social stories and reels.
- 1:1 square, a compact format that performs well in social feeds.
- 4:5 portrait, a taller feed format that uses more screen than square.
Choosing which you need starts with where the video will live. A broadcast or website piece leans on 16:9, while a social campaign often needs vertical and square versions too. These are delivery decisions, closely related to the formats and codecs covered in our guide to video format conversion services.
Reframing without ruining the shot
Turning a 16:9 shot into a 9:16 one is not as simple as cropping the sides. Do it carelessly and you cut off a speaker's face or lose the key action. Reframing well means deciding, shot by shot, what the important part of the frame is and keeping it centred in the new shape. A few habits help:
- Shoot a little wider than you need, leaving room to reframe later.
- Keep the main subject away from the extreme edges during the shoot.
- Reframe each shot deliberately rather than applying one crop to everything.
- Check that on-screen graphics and text still fit the new shape.
That last point matters, because motion graphics and titles often need their own adjustment for each ratio, as our guide to motion graphics services reflects.
Plan for multiple formats from the start
The smoothest path is to decide your delivery formats before you shoot, or at least before you lock the edit. Knowing you need a vertical cut changes how you frame on the day and how you build the timeline. Where budget allows, editing a dedicated version for each key platform beats forcing one crop everywhere. And if your videos carry captions, remember they must be repositioned for each ratio too, as our guide to captions, subtitles and transcripts notes.
One story, every screen
Aspect ratio is where a video meets the real world of phones, feeds and televisions. Pick the ratios your audience actually uses, reframe each shot with intention rather than a blanket crop, and plan for multiple formats before you finish the edit. Do that and a single production reaches every screen looking like it was made for it. If you want help delivering your video across platforms, explore our production blog or reach us through the contact page.