Get one film onto every platform it needs to reach
How to get a landscape film, a vertical cut and a square cut without cropping one master into three — by making one film per format, reusing the same Brand Kit and product screens each time.
A film made for a landing page and a film made for a phone feed are not the same shot at two sizes. Text that is legible at 16:9 disappears in a 9:16 crop; a cursor movement that reads clearly across a wide frame gets lost in a narrow one. So Frame24 does not treat a second format as a crop of the first — it authors each format as its own film, from the same brand and the same material.
What "authored, not cropped" actually means
When you choose a format for a film, that choice runs through scene design from the start — text sizing, camera framing, where the cursor and the interface sit in the frame, all decided for the shape you asked for. A 9:16 film is not a 16:9 film with the sides trimmed off; it is a film generated to fill a vertical frame in the first place.
What that means in practice: one film per format
There is no single export step that turns one finished film into three formats. Getting a widescreen film and a vertical cut means creating two films in the project — each with its own format chosen at creation. That sounds like more work than a one-click export, and the first time through, it is. What makes the second and third pass fast is everything else staying in place.
| What carries over automatically | What you choose again |
|---|---|
| Your Brand Kit — colours, type, logo | The format: 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1 |
| Captured product screens, from the library | Duration — a social cut is often shorter |
| The underlying idea or brief | How much of the story to keep versus trim |
| Voice, if you want the same one | Whether to reuse the exact narration or tighten it |
A practical sequence for three formats
Getting a film onto every surface it needs to reach
- Make the primary format firstUsually 16:9, for the site and for sales. This is the version with the most room to make the full argument, and the clearest source to work from when deciding what a shorter cut should keep.
- Capture your product screens onceIf the film uses real product UI, get that library built on the first film. Every format after this one reuses it without re-capturing anything.
- Create the second film at its real format, not as an afterthoughtStart a new film, choose 9:16, and give it the same idea or a tightened version of it. Let it be authored for that shape rather than trying to force the first film's pacing into a taller frame.
- Shorten deliberately, not by removing the same amount from every sceneA vertical social cut is often shorter than the landscape original. Decide which scenes earn their place at that length rather than trimming each one proportionally.
- Repeat for 1:1 if you need itSquare is worth making when you know it is going somewhere specific — a feed placement, an ad unit — rather than as a default third format nobody asked for.
Why this is worth the extra step
The alternative — export once, crop three ways — is the workflow that produces the underperforming social cuts most companies publish: text half off-screen, a cursor pointing at nothing because the target moved outside the crop, captions sized for a frame the video no longer is. One film per format costs an extra creation step and buys back exactly the legibility that a crop throws away.
Questions people ask
Can I convert my 16:9 film into a 9:16 version?
Not by cropping the existing render — that is deliberately not how this works, because a cropped widescreen shot loses the framing that made it legible. Instead, create a second film in the same project with 9:16 chosen as its format; it is authored for that shape from the start.
Do I have to redo everything for a second format?
No. Your Brand Kit and any product screens you have captured are saved to the project and available to every film in it. A second format reuses both — you are choosing a new shape and often a shorter duration, not starting from zero.
What formats does Frame24 support?
16:9 (landscape), 9:16 (vertical) and 1:1 (square). Format is chosen when a film is created.
Which format should I make first?
Whichever one carries the most weight — usually 16:9 for your own site and sales, since it is the easiest source to work from when deciding what a shorter vertical cut should keep. Make that one first and decide the others deliberately, rather than treating the first film as a master to crop later.
Should the vertical cut be the same length as the widescreen one?
Not necessarily. A social cut is often shorter than a site or sales film, because the two are watched in different circumstances — attention on a feed is a different resource from attention on a page someone chose to visit.
Keep reading
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