How to cut two masters from rushes that are half portrait and half landscape

Last updated 2026-09-17 · 8 min read

What is the short version?

A phone shoot with several people filming produces both orientations, and the instinct is to pick one and crop everything into it. That throws away either the sides of every landscape shot or the top and bottom of every vertical one.

1. Ask Vizard Agent to sort the pile by orientation first.
2. Ask for one master built from each group.
3. Accept that the two cuts share a story, not a shot list.

What do you need before you start?

The whole pile and both delivery formats. Vizard Agent can only build a genuinely full-bleed vertical master if enough of the day was shot vertically in the first place, so the first useful thing it can tell you is how much of each orientation you actually have to work with.

• Every clip. However many, both orientations.
• Both target formats. Which ratios you need.
• The story. So each cut can tell it independently.
• What must appear. Moments that have to be in both.
• Your tolerance for reframing. For the few shots that must cross.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Rule out the compromise explicitly when you brief Vizard Agent. Left to pick for itself, the sensible-looking plan is one edit delivered in two different shapes, and that plan is exactly what produces the pillarboxing and the cropped heads you are trying to avoid.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• "Rank them by orientation first." Before any editorial decision.
• "Two separate full-bleed masters." Not one film, twice.
• "Do not squeeze or put bars." The compromise, ruled out.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the Vizard Agent sequence on a real event recap cut from a hundred and forty-one phone clips. The sort happens before any creative choice at all, because which clips are even eligible for a given cut depends entirely on which master is being built.

1. Probes all the clips for duration and format.
2. Ranks them by duration and orientation.
3. Extracts the vertical shots and their live audio.
4. Reviews the vertical candidates as contact sheets.
5. Re-crops the few weak vertical shots and fills a gap.
6. Tiles the re-cropped replacements for review.
7. Extracts the longer landscape shots, including slow motion.
8. Reviews every landscape shot before the cut is built.
9. Reframes the four weakest landscape shots.
10. Assembles each master separately with its own grade, titles and mix.

Step two is the whole method in one line. Sorting by orientation turns one impossible edit into two straightforward ones, because each cut is now working from material that already fits its frame.

Step five is the exception that proves the rule. A handful of shots will be essential and in the wrong orientation, and those get reframed deliberately — but four shots reframed is a different job from a hundred and forty cropped.

Step seven notices something easy to miss. The longer takes in a mixed pile are often the landscape ones, because people turn the phone sideways when they mean to film properly, so the two groups have different rhythms available to them.

What does the result look like?

Two films that both fill their frame. Nothing is pillarboxed, no heads are cut off, each cut uses the shots that suit its shape, and Vizard Agent tells you which moments appear in both and which are exclusive to one.

When does this not work well?

The approach needs a reasonable amount of both. If ninety per cent of the day was shot one way round, then the other master has too little material for Vizard Agent to work with, and reframing stops being the exception and becomes the whole job again.

• A lopsided pile. Not enough of one orientation.
• A moment that exists once. It has to cross, and be reframed.
• Strict shot-for-shot parity. Then you want one cut, reframed.
• Mixed orientation inside one clip. Somebody rotated mid-take.
• Very short pieces. Two cuts is more work than the runtime justifies.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Say which master you mean and which moment in it. The two cuts are separate pieces of work as far as Vizard Agent is concerned, so a note about the vertical one leaves the landscape one completely alone rather than starting another round on both.

• "The vertical is missing the speech." That moment is reframed across.
• "There are bars on shot six." That clip came from the other group; it is replaced.
• "They feel like different events." Shared moments are added to both.
• "This shot is cropped too tight." The reframe is redone or the shot swapped.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand you pick the orientation with the most footage, crop everything else into it, and spend the edit deciding which half of each landscape shot to lose. The vertical version ends up full of near-misses and the landscape one never gets made.

Common questions

Why not just crop everything? Because you lose the sides or the heads. Vizard Agent sorts instead.

Will the two cuts match shot for shot? No, and they should not. Vizard Agent reports what each master ended up containing.

What if a key moment is only in one orientation? It gets reframed deliberately. Vizard Agent flags which shots those are.

How many clips can it sort? A hundred and forty is routine. Vizard Agent probes them all first.

Does the audio differ between the cuts? It can. Vizard Agent extracts the live audio with each group.

What about square? A third master, or a reframe of one. Tell Vizard Agent which you want.

Can it tell me the split before deciding? Yes. Ask for the orientation ranking and decide from the numbers.

What if someone rotated mid-clip? Vizard Agent flags those; they usually need splitting first.

Will the grades match? Yes. Vizard Agent applies the same treatment to both masters.

Is this more work than one cut? Somewhat. Vizard Agent spends it on two good films rather than one compromised one.

What about the titles? Laid out per frame. A landscape title bar does not fit a vertical frame.

Can it reuse the same music? Yes, timed to each cut separately.

Which master should be built first? Whichever has more material. The second borrows its decisions.

Can I see what each cut uses? Yes. Ask Vizard Agent for the shot list of each master.