Change from landscape to portrait format?

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Level 1

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Change from landscape to portrait format?

Hello, I have a video question. I was asked to create a 2 minute video piece of myself describing my work for a job opportunity, so I did – it took me 2 hours of my time to set up and execute because I stutter and am self-conscious on camera, so numerous takes were necessary. But I finally got it finished and was happy with the result. Then I got an email informing me that the video had to be in portrait format – but I had shot my video in landscape format. I tried repeatedly to re-shoot the video in portrait format but really could not do it, I am just not able to do this a second time due to stuttering. Can someone please tell me how to change a landscape video into a portrait format video in either Quicktime or iMovie? The original video I shot in landscape format was great and I would love to use it – I do not care if there is quality loss or anything like that. I have scoured the internet but could not find anything helpful. Please, if someone can help me I will be forever grateful!

Posted on May 28, 2020 2:50 PM

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Rich839

Level 8

48,174 points

May 28, 2020 8:34 PM in response to Rigaer13

You can change landscape to portrait mode, but it will take cropping. But as long as the clip is suitable to be cropped it can be done.

Import your video into a new project. Click on the project name under the Project Media heading at the top of the iMovie project sidebar. That will display your video in the media browser. Select the videol in the media browser to display it in the preview screen. Click on the corp icon (the one that looks like intersecting angles) in the tool bar at the top of your screen. Then click on the crop button that appears at the top left of the preview screen. That will reveal adjustment rectangles in the preview screen that will let you crop in any configuration. Adjust the rectangles to crop your clip to portrait mode. Then click on the blue reset button to the right of the preview screen to apply your changes. Depending on how the original landscape clip displays the position of the subject you might need to split your video into appropriate segments and apply the crop to each segment individually.

When in portrait mode iMovie will place black bars on each side of the image to fill in the landscape dimensions of the iMovie screen. So, you can click on the crop icon and use the rotation rectangles to rotate the video sideways. Then export and use QuickTimePlayer to rotate it right side up. That will get rid of the black bars.

-- Rich

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Change from landscape to portrait format?

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