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Vertical video is more than landscape footage turned on its side—but portrait orientation alone does not make a genre. The stronger case is that creators can use the tall frame to develop recognizable ways of composing, editing, and communicating. That is the invitation behind the supplied Vurt title: look at vertical videos as a genre of their own, while recognizing that the form is still varied and evolving.
Is vertical video a genre?
Vertical video describes a frame orientation, usually called portrait. Genre describes recurring conventions and expectations: how a work is structured, what it is trying to do, and how viewers are invited to watch it. A video does not become a genre simply because its frame is tall. But when portrait composition repeatedly shapes storytelling, staging, pacing, sound, or text, it becomes useful to analyze vertical video as a creative form with genre-like conventions.
That distinction matters because vertical video covers many kinds of work, from short entertainment to explainers and dramatic narratives. There is no single vertical-video style or settled taxonomy that fits them all.
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What the tall frame can change
A portrait frame gives filmmakers a different set of compositional choices from a landscape frame. It can make a single person, a standing figure, a doorway, or a narrow space prominent; it can also limit how much of a wide scene remains visible. The orientation is not inherently better or worse. What matters is whether the frame serves the work’s purpose.
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When examining a vertical video, consider how the following elements work together:
- Viewing context: Is the work designed for a phone held upright, a projected tall screen, or another setting?
- Purpose: Is it telling a story, teaching, presenting expertise, or communicating something else?
- Composition: How does it use the vertical space, and what is kept outside the frame?
- Camera and scale: What do the shot size and camera angle make prominent?
- Editing and duration: How does the rhythm support the subject and the intended viewing experience?
- Sound and overlays: How do speech, direct sound, subtitles, and other on-screen elements contribute?
- Production approach: Was the work composed in portrait orientation from the start, or reframed from landscape footage?
Evidence of conventions—and variation
Genre analysis in a defined context
M.A. Goncharova’s 2025 study examines short vertical video in German-speaking educational discourse, specifically on VK Clips. It identifies formal and functional parameters and distinguishes entertainment-educational, expert, and presentation-educational types. This shows how genre analysis can help explain vertical video in a particular setting; it is not a classification of all vertical video or every platform. Read the study.
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Patterns in a Spanish digital-media sample
A 2025 study in VISUAL Review examined vertical-format videos from Spanish digital media, including examples on Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. In that analyzed sample, common features included eye-level camera placement, close and medium shots, sequential or multi-shot editing, direct sound, subtitles, and short duration. Most of the sample’s videos were under one minute, particularly in its YouTube Shorts subset; those findings describe the sample, not a platform limit or a universal audience preference.
The study also found that 62.67% of the analyzed vertical-format pieces had been reframed from images originally shot horizontally. Some visual elements were left out of the resulting frame. That figure applies to the study’s sample, not to vertical video as a whole. The finding illustrates why it is worth asking whether a portrait frame was designed for the work or imposed later. Read the study.
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Vertical storytelling in film criticism
A 2019 MUBI Notebook feature discussed vertical dramas made for mobile viewing and the ways filmmakers work with the narrower aspect ratio. It also relayed journalist Henry Sung’s description of short episodes, verticality treated as a genre, and a fragmented visual language. This is useful context for thinking about specific creative practices, not a universal definition of vertical video. Read the feature.
Why filmmakers have treated portrait format as a creative choice
The Australian non-profit Vertical Film Festival (VFF) says it was established in 2014 as a competition for short films created and edited in portrait orientation (9:16) for tall-screen projection. It describes its purpose as showcasing filmmakers exploring the creative potential of the format. Its competition is for films of three minutes or less, and it says works can be made with any HD-quality apparatus, from a smartphone to a film camera. These are the festival’s stated criteria and description; check its current guidance for submission status and entry details.
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The VFF’s About page puts its position this way: “Regardless of theme or genre, it’s a showcase for artist-filmmakers exploring the creative potential of the vertical format while its visual language still taking shape.” The festival’s framing is significant: vertical orientation can be explored across genres rather than being a genre with one prescribed subject or look. See the Vertical Film Festival’s About page.
How to tell whether a video uses verticality meaningfully
Compare what the portrait frame contributes to a particular work. If it concentrates attention on a subject, supports the staging, or makes a sequence of images and text work as intended, orientation is part of the creative design. If horizontal footage has simply been cropped, ask what information the crop preserves or removes. A repurposed video can still work in portrait; the important question is what the framing does to the viewer’s understanding.
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That approach avoids two unhelpful assumptions: that every vertical video shares one style, and that portrait video is merely a technical compromise. Vertical is a format; its recurring creative and communicative choices are what make genre-level analysis worthwhile.
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