Has the meaning of "landscape orientation" changed?

RJM62

RJM62

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Geek on the Hill
I have a client who pays his technicians for every video they take that I choose to use on the company's YouTube channel. We prefer the videos be in landscape orientation unless the context dictates otherwise, which is exceedingly rare.

The older technicians send the videos in landscape. The younger ones don't. Both the boss and I have sent out numerous memos reminding them that the videos should be in landscape orientation. We've also used terms like "horizontal," "wider than it is tall," "taken with the phone held sideways," and "like a widescreen television." All to no avail. They still send the videos in portrait orientation.

Most recently, I sent them all a picture of a rectangle, in landscape orientation, with the words "THIS IS LANDSCAPE" on it. That didn't work either.

My next step is to simply ****can any video that's not in landscape orientation. It doesn't affect my pay and would be less work for me. But I figured I should ask if maybe the nomenclature has changed, or whether maybe there's some other word I should be using. Because I honestly don't understand what the problem is.

Thanks,

Rich
 
I had to explain to a very young and ditzy flight attendant the difference between Portrait and Landscape printer modes.....

Her reply was it should say Essay and Sideways modes. She was 100% serious!! I really wanted to reply, "I trust YOU with the doors???"!

I'm 26 and it makes perfect sense to me!!
 
It hasn't changed. Sounds like the people you're dealing with are just out-to-lunch and incompetent at their job.
 
Ryanb said:
It hasn't changed. Sounds like the people you're dealing with are just out-to-lunch and incompetent at their job.
Click to expand...

They're actually very good at their jobs, and they're even good at taking videos -- other than for the fact that the orientation is wrong. Nine times out of ten all I have to do is watermark them, fade them in and out, and maybe clean up some ambient noise. It's pretty rare that I have to do actual editing. They just don't seem to get the portrait vs. landscape thing.

Last year's version of the GoPro Hero is cheap now. I may talk to the boss about buying the guys who regularly take videos GoPro's and having them strap them to their heads. I have one guy there who does that, and the videos are great. (He also edits the videos, watermarks them, and adds sound effects. All I have to do with his videos is upload them. I love that guy.)

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
The younger ones don't
Click to expand...
It's a smart phone / laziness phenomenon. I cringe every time I see a vertical video.. and it's becoming exceedingly common. A local new station will show "eye witness footage of the flooding" and you get something absurd like this

upload_2018-1-10_14-3-11.png

What is worse is the news stations aren't helping anything when they add the mega-blurr side boundaries in to make it seem like it's a normal video

Frankly... I think the phone camera tech should be smart enough to always shoot landscape, and to autorotate depending on phone orientation when you view it
 
NATIONAL-PORTRAIT-GALLERYNATIONAL-LANDSCAPE-GALLERY-1-C05383.jpg
 
I think they're just screwing with you, inside jokes amongst the youngsters. I like the "gonna get fired" memo suggestion as a joke back, if they're a laid back group.
 
If the person isn't smart enough to know how to hold their stupid telephones, then I won't waste my time watching their videos.
 
Tantalum said:
I once thought about randomly putting "the first person to reply to this email will get $100 in cash from me" somewhere in the middle of the email inconspicuously just to see how many people actually read my emails
Click to expand...


A tech lead did that in some rather long documentation he wrote. I was the only one to try and collect, he said. But it was only $10.
 
They are so used to portrait mode on SnatchChat
 
Tantalum said:
. . . Frankly... I think the phone camera tech should be smart enough to always shoot landscape, and to autorotate depending on phone orientation when you view it
Click to expand...

I agree. At least when the video option is selected, it should automatically resort to landscape mode for recording unless you specifically tell it not to.
 
Tantalum said:
I once thought about randomly putting "the first person to reply to this email will get $100 in cash from me" somewhere in the middle of the email inconspicuously just to see how many people actually read my emails
Click to expand...

I put that in a long memo for my boss after about the tenth edit. I wrote, "I wonder if anyone will read this." I never heard a word about it...

I think the issue with vertical is millennial indifference. Attention to detail is lost on young workers today.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
I think they're just screwing with you, inside jokes amongst the youngsters. I like the "gonna get fired" memo suggestion as a joke back, if they're a laid back group.
Click to expand...

That's possible. But it's also dumb if it's true since I'm the guy who decides whether they get used, and therefore whether they get paid for them. Maybe I should just stop using them and see if they get the message.

They do the same thing with still photos, but I really don't care because all the still photos get cropped and resized anyway. There's plenty of quality headroom to do that without making the still pictures look like crap. With the videos, not so much.

Rich
 
Type out your memo in word, then scan it to pdf, rotate it, and send it to them.

Then you can watch them all lean their heads like RCA dogs to try to read the memo.

Edit: You may have to explain to them what the RCA dog was
 
Remember back in the Good Ol' Days when we had to tell people to hold a 35mm film camera sideways if they were taking a photo of, say, a single individual who was standing?

Same problem, new idiots.
 
I have to confess to making vertical videos just when I'm sending them to other phones and I know that's how they'll be watched. But in general it drives me nuts especially youtube. No excuse for posting verticals with those black sides or the blurry sides. Unwatchable.
 
The first line in the OP should be reason enough for them to do it right. If it is done right, Rich will choose it. If Rich chooses it, they get paid. Seems like the morons don't actually want to get paid.

RJM62 said:
I have a client who pays his technicians for every video they take that I choose to use on the company's YouTube channel.
Click to expand...
 
Ravioli said:
Type out your memo in word, then scan it to pdf, rotate it, and send it to them.

Then you can watch them all lean their heads like RCA dogs to try to read the memo.

Edit: You may have to explain to them what the RCA dog was
Click to expand...
Chipper & Nipper.
 
N3368K said:
"I wonder if anyone will read this."
Click to expand...
love it
sometimes I make my first line an eye catcher... like "looks like we may take a 10 pt hit on margins, details below" <- ofcourse you have to be careful with the "clickbait" so use it sparingly

Ravioli said:
Type out your memo in word, then scan it to pdf, rotate it, and send it to them.
Click to expand...
I once printed off a blank piece of paper that said "do not discard this sheet" just to see how long it would sit in the printer

Incidentally, since we're in the realm of pet peeves.. being a data guy it really bothers me when I report something like the following

"margins rose from 28% last month to 43% this month, reflecting a 15 pt increase"
and then to my chagrin someone repeats it as
"Our margins rose 15%!!"
 
That and portraits of people with wide angle noses that are "too big".
 
Ravioli said:
Type out your memo in word, then scan it to pdf, rotate it, and send it to them.

Then you can watch them all lean their heads like RCA dogs to try to read the memo.

Edit: You may have to explain to them what the RCA dog was
Click to expand...
Edit: You will have to explain to them what the RCA dog was.
 
Let's face it, most people are friggin' morons.
 
If you just don't use the video, they don't get it. If whoever is paying only pays 1/2 price for portrait videos, they get the idea real quick.
 
Tantalum said:
love it
sometimes I make my first line an eye catcher... like "looks like we may take a 10 pt hit on margins, details below" <- ofcourse you have to be careful with the "clickbait" so use it sparingly


I once printed off a blank piece of paper that said "do not discard this sheet" just to see how long it would sit in the printer

Incidentally, since we're in the realm of pet peeves.. being a data guy it really bothers me when I report something like the following

"margins rose from 28% last month to 43% this month, reflecting a 15 pt increase"
and then to my chagrin someone repeats it as
"Our margins rose 15%!!"
Click to expand...

The repost was likely by someone higher up the management chain.
 
How about the person who took every single picture with the camera at an angle, because holding the camera at an angle made him look cool.
Yup. Really.
 
Shepherd said:
How about the person who took every single picture with the camera at an angle, because holding the camera at an angle made him look cool.
Yup. Really.
Click to expand...
A lot of folks tilt the camera when taking ground pictures of a taildragger. They apparently think it looks better with the plane aligned with the long axis of the frame.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I understand "Portrait" and "Landscape" but then I used "VCR" in a recent post and got allot of ribbing.
 
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