午夜剧场

"Why vertical video?"

Six years ago, when I started a video distribution company called C Channel, this was the question I was asked most often. Ever since the dawn of cinema, it has been common sense that video is viewed on a "horizontal screen."

Until then, I had worked at Nippon Television Network for 25 years, launching numerous television programs including variety shows, dramas, and news programs.

Around 2011, when I launched the morning news program "ZIP!" as the person in charge, the rapid spread of smartphones and technological changes seemed both threatening and fascinating to me as a TV professional.

"From now on, we might be entering an era where people carry video around with them." Based on that intuition, on "ZIP!" we broke the program into segments like "MOCO'S Kitchen" and distributed them online immediately after the broadcast. This was so people could watch the continuation of what they saw at home while commuting to work or school. Initially, I faced fierce opposition from both inside and outside the company, but I felt that the era where people only interacted with TV programs through broadcasting was over. Consequently, I decided to launch a venture company for viewing video on smartphones.

C Channel is the video version of a women's magazine. At first, it was a series of struggles. Viewership didn't grow, and we were in a state where the company could have collapsed at any time, leaving me exhausted both mentally and physically.

In the midst of that, we found a gold mine: time-lapse videos of "hair styling" and "cooking." Magazines cannot express the "process." Videos are overwhelmingly easier to understand when showing the steps of cooking or the process of styling hair. In 2017, our numbers surged to 600 million views worldwide.

Smartphones are vertical because they fit the hand. Furthermore, the human body is also vertical. The reason the Mona Lisa and Ukiyo-e are "vertical" is that the format is more compatible with representing people. The vertical format fit perfectly for a service depicting content centered on women's lifestyles, and after that, not a single person asked the question I mentioned at the beginning.

Looking back now in 2021, I frequently see people watching videos on their smartphones around town.

Content and technology have always had a chicken-and-egg relationship. Since the Lumière brothers first screened a film in Paris, these two have developed while chasing each other.

From now on, every time a new technology is born, new content will likely be created. However, whether that technology captures people's hearts at that time depends on the content. I believe that imagination is the foundation of creation.