One video, every screen, no second edit
· Video
Reels, Stories, feed posts and profile grids all want a slightly different shape. Here is how to cut once and let it fit everywhere.
Anyone who has made a short video for social knows the second half of the job: exporting it five different ways for five different shapes, then discovering the caption you burned in now sits under someone's chin. It is tedious, and it is also avoidable if you think about the shape problem before you start cutting, not after.
The trick is to compose for a safe middle. Keep your subject close to the center of the frame instead of pushed to an edge, and leave a little breathing room top and bottom. A square crop and a vertical crop will both find your subject if it is already living in the middle third, and you will not need to reframe a single shot to make that happen.
Captions deserve the same thinking. Most people watch with the sound off by default, so burn in short, punchy lines rather than long sentences that get clipped when the frame changes shape. Keep them centered too, and keep them short enough to read in the time a shot actually stays on screen.
Save the exporting for last. Get the story right first: the hook, the pacing, the ending. Once that is solid, the different shapes are a formality, not a redo. Chasing five aspect ratios at once is usually how a good idea gets lost in technical fuss.