There has been an unmistakable, almost gravitational shift in human attention. Step into any subway, walk through any park, or glance across any restaurant, and you will see a scattered congregation of individuals gazing downward into the private, glowing world of their phones. Being present is optional. Distraction is the new norm. The pocket-sized screen is now the world’s constant companion, and the data clearly illuminates where the audience is looking. The average American spends over four and a half hours a day on their phone, and for Gen Z, that can soar to over six hours. In a head-to-head battle, streaming platforms recently captured over 38% of total TV viewing time, decisively surpassing cable TV's viewership. The question for filmmakers and storytellers is stark: given that it is now obvious where the audience is and what their viewing preferences are, should the craft follow the frame?

A History of Constant Evolution

The evolution of visual media formats reveals a constant, accelerating churn. The silent film era (roughly 1895–1927) dominated cinema for 32 years before sound (The Talkies) arrived and completely upended the industry. The standardized Academy Ratio (the original 4:3 or 1.33:1 frame) then reigned for nearly 30 years before the advent of television sparked the Widescreen Craze in the early 1950s, which introduced formats like CinemaScope and Panavision to draw audiences back to theaters. The classic 4:3 broadcast television ratio then became the standard for home viewing for nearly 50 years (c. 1940s–1990s) until it began its inevitable, drawn-out shift to the now-ubiquitous 16:9 widescreen HDTV format.

Each major format held sway for a defining generation, but with each passing shift—from film to TV, from cable to streaming — the time between major revolutions shrinks, suggesting that we may well be on our way to another major significant era.

To those who recoil at the sight of a portrait-mode frame, it is worth remembering that media has always been in a constant state of change. Our visual storytelling heritage is a continuous chain of adaptation: from the shared, live energy of theater to the fixed frame of the painting; from the illusion of motion in a photograph to the spectacle of film; from the innovation of sound to the colorized frame, and then from cinema's shared darkness to the intimacy of broadcast TV. That transition continued from linear television to the on-demand library of streaming, and now, a complete turn from the large widescreen to the vertical dimensions of a mobile screen. The difference? The ease of accessibility. All day (and night), right by your side.

Is vertical viewing, then, anything more than just another notch on this long, winding chart of evolution? It is the logical conclusion of a mobile-first world. The vertical 9:16 aspect ratio isn't a stylistic choice; it's a matter of ergonomic convenience. People hold their phones vertically over 90% of the time. The rise of platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and vertically-focused micro-dramas is simply the industry’s capitulation to the human hand.

The Case Against the Widescreen Purists

The horizontal, 16:9 frame is sacrosanct to many traditionalists. They correctly argue that the wide frame is a window onto a world, allowing for epic scope, contextual information, and the use of peripheral vision—a format that mimics the natural sweep of the human eye. To them, vertical video is a cheap, claustrophobic slice of reality, one that focuses only on the figure and ignores the landscape, sacrificing cinematic grandeur for attention-grabbing immediacy.

But the traditionalists may be wrong in their pushback for one simple reason: they are defending a distribution format, not a storytelling principle. The vertical frame forces a new kind of creative discipline: intimacy and economy. It is a format that excels at portraiture, focusing the entire screen on the human face, magnifying emotional nuance, and creating an intense, one-to-one relationship with the viewer. It forces storytellers to strip away excess, making their narratives concise, direct, and hyper-focused—traits perfectly suited to a generation with an eight-second attention span and a need for immediate engagement.

If a landscape wide frame is the reflection of the human gaze, one might ponder as to why historical paintings and photographers chose a portrait orientation. Would the painting or photograph have benefitted from more context on either side? Or, could we see the portrait choice for what it is - an intentional, creative choice?

The True Artistic Pushback

The traditionalists are right to be vigilant. The danger of the vertical format is not its shape, but the speed and disposability it encourages. The pressure to create "snackable" content risks eroding the appreciation for depth, complexity, and slow-burn narrative. 

The vast, panoramic shot that establishes a setting, the careful choreography of multiple characters in a frame, the deliberate pace of a scene — these elements of craft are naturally diminished in a format that prioritizes the quick punch of the close-up. Storytellers must protect the integrity of their art against the forces of pure algorithm-driven novelty.

The truth is, the format may change, but the underlying human need remains constant: storytelling. Humans have told stories for their entire existence, from charcoal sketches on cave walls to epic poems spoken around a fire. Stories come in sound, in images, in words, and now, on a vertical screen held in the hand. The vehicle is different, but the cargo—the shared human experience, the drama, the comedy, the truth—is exactly the same.

The Call to the Creative

Storytelling is the fundamental bedrock of our human history and existence. Regardless of the viewing format—whether painted on a canvas, projected in a darkened theater, or displayed on a glowing vertical rectangle—stories will continue to be told, and they will continue to be sought out. A truly good story has a gravity that will capture an audience and their imagination, even if it is told in the dimensions of a phone screen.

We as creatives do not need to mourn the passing of old formats; we simply need to figure out the new rules of light, shadow, and narrative structure within the frame we’ve been given. Vertical narrative is not the death of cinema; it is merely another canvas. A skilled artist can create a masterpiece on a postage stamp just as surely as on a wall. It is an avenue to reach billions who will never sit through a four-hour arthouse epic, but who might be captivated by a two-minute micro-drama built entirely for their device.

Filmmakers and storytellers must heed the audience’s gaze and go to where they are. We must continue to evolve alongside changing habits. After all, art is the reflection and expression of humanity at any given moment. The call is not to hate the horizontal or love the vertical, but to see this new format as a fertile field for creative exercise. The vertical screen is an unprecedented opportunity to explore a language of intimacy, to master the art of the succinct narrative, and to once again prove that in the perpetual evolution of media, the only constant is the power of a great story, no matter its shape.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Justin Ivan Hong is an award winning Cinematographer and Director of Photography. He serves as a cinematography consultant to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and writes about the emerging trends impacting the future of filmmaking and storytelling.