Movies Framed to Accommodate Vertical Videos on Social Media

Just had this thought that with the current and rising popularity of vertical videos on social media, some movies are mostly framed in the center to accommodate this especially for trailer editors to find footage they can use for marketing on Instagram, FaceBook, etc.

The latest Wes Anderson movie has no problem.

If you took a photography, film or TV class in school or college, you were taught about the universally applied rule of thirds were a subject in focus is often framed off-center to the top, bottom, left or right. Widescreen films since the 1950s used that to full advantage as the characters are blocked and stage in order for the audience to see what is happening away from the center.

One example I can think is the 2023 movie “Wish”, where it has a wide CinemaScope / Cinerama type of ratio but a majority of the movie squeezes the characters in the center. If you quote David Lynch in The Fablemans, if the horizon is in the center, it’s boring.

It’s just the landscape we live in now where social media often is a huge draw for marketing large tentpoles or small indie films. If the filmmaker is still keen on rule of thirds, the marketing would either have to letterbox the frame or apply the pan and scan techniques to make sure each important subject in the frame is in focus.

If Hollywood is going vertical, does rule of thirds still apply?