The Staircase

Why we film vertical on purpose

A landscape film cropped into a vertical frame loses two thirds of its width, and the two thirds it loses are usually the reason the shot existed. Rooms disappear. Trains disappear. The bride ends up filling a frame that was composed around her, not on her.

So when a couple wants something for a phone, we film it as its own thing, with its own shots, in its own frame. On a stair like this one that is not a compromise at all. Vertical suits a staircase, a train, a doorway and a dress better than a wide frame ever has, because all four of those things are taller than they are wide.

What a reel is actually for

It is the piece that travels. Family who could not come, friends who will watch it once on a phone and never open a link on a laptop, and the couple themselves in the first week, when they want to show someone at work in eleven seconds.

This one is a reel in the older sense too: it is not one couple's story but a set of them, cut together in one building because the building was the constant. If you are looking for a single wedding told from beginning to end, watch The Whole Day instead. If you want to know what the camera does with a dress and a staircase, this is the honest answer.

Asking for one

A vertical cut is made from footage filmed for that purpose, so it has to be decided before the wedding rather than after. Tell us when you commission the film and the film team plans for it, which usually costs the day nothing at all: the vertical shots happen in the same minutes as the wide ones.

What it should never do is replace the film. A reel is a trailer with no feature behind it unless somebody also made the feature.