🎥 The Rise of Vertical Video: How to Film for TikTok, YouTube Shorts & Reels in 2025
- gear4greatness
- May 1, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 14, 2025
🎥 The Rise of Vertical Video: How to Film for TikTok, YouTube Shorts & Reels in 2025
I’ve learned something wild over the last year of filming, editing, and posting almost every day: vertical video isn’t just a format — it’s a language. 📱✨ And once you start speaking it fluently, everything changes. Algorithms feel different. Views feel different. Even the way you film starts to feel different. There’s something about holding a camera upright — whether it’s my Galaxy S25 Ultra, Pocket 3 rotated for portrait, or the Insta360 X5 reframed in 9:16 — that makes the footage feel closer, more direct, almost like you’re having a quiet conversation with someone through the lens.
When I scroll TikTok or Shorts now, I realize it’s not just the content that hooks me — it’s the perspective. Vertical fills your whole field of view. It becomes an experience instead of a clip. And that’s why creators like us can’t ignore it anymore. I’ve seen it firsthand: videos that felt “meh” in landscape suddenly become alive in vertical. The framing gets intimate. The motion hits harder. Even something simple like walking across a bridge or filming my cats playing string feels more intentional in 9:16.
And mastering the technical side became part of the fun for me. 🌄 I started caring about framing tighter, letting the vertical space breathe, leaning into subtitles, using split screens, overlaying POV clips on top of B-roll — all the creative things vertical allows that landscape just never did. When I shoot with the Insta360 X5, it’s almost like magic: I can film everything in 360°, then carve the perfect vertical punch-out later, reframing the moment into a story. Editing in vertical feels like sculpting — taking raw movement and turning it into something that feels alive.
Even my gear changed. The DJI Mic 2 stays clipped to my hoodie because vertical audio matters more — people watch with one headphone in, or none at all, so voice clarity becomes the anchor. 🎤💬 And the mounts? I’ve swapped half of them for vertical-friendly rigs: small tripods, smartphone clamps, my Ulanzi vertical mount on the handlebars. They make the workflow smoother so I can film fast and film clean. Because in vertical, momentum matters. The first two seconds can make or break the entire clip.
Platforms have personalities now — TikTok loves raw and messy moments, Shorts wants energy and polish, and Reels thrives on aesthetic flow. 📲✨ When I’m filming, I can almost feel which platform a moment belongs to. A funny pet clip? TikTok. Scenic slow-motion walk? Reels. Hyperlapse bike ride? Shorts. It’s like each app has its own editing rhythm, and vertical video is the pulse that connects it all.
What surprised me most, though, is how vertical changed my eye. My instinct. I start noticing little details more — reflections in a puddle, the way light hits a face, how a street looks when you tilt slightly up. I think vertical forces you to look for emotion instead of just composition. And that’s where it becomes more than a trend. It becomes a way of storytelling.
🎥 The Rise of Vertical Video: How to Film for TikTok, YouTube Shorts & Reels in 2025
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🌄 FINAL THOUGHTS
What vertical video really gave me — beyond reach or views or algorithm boosts — was connection. 💭✨ When I film vertically, it feels like I’m speaking directly to someone. Not an audience. Not a crowd. A person. One person holding their phone in their hand, looking right into the frame. There’s a closeness there that landscape can’t touch. And that closeness is what keeps viewers watching.
The more I leaned into vertical, the more I realized it wasn’t about chasing trends — it was about meeting people where they are. Phones aren’t held sideways anymore. Life isn’t watched from a distance. It’s all happening upright, in motion, in our hands. Filming vertically lets my stories fit into people’s real lives instead of asking them to adjust for mine.
And honestly? It made me a better creator. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s intentional. Vertical forces you to think about emotion, pacing, facial reactions, framing, engagement — the human side of video. The side we sometimes forget about when we get lost in specs and sensors and bitrate charts.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: vertical video isn’t the future — it’s the present. It’s where the energy is. It’s where creators grow. It’s where audiences live. And every time I rotate a camera upright, I’m reminded that storytelling evolves, and so do we. 🌅
Vertical isn’t just a format. It’s a feeling. And once you create in it, you never look at video the same again.
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