Editing
Choosing the right vertical layout for gaming clips
Fill, facecam-stacked or fit-with-blur: when to use each layout and why letterboxing loses viewers.
5 November 2026 · 5 min read
Streams are recorded wide; TikTok, Reels and Shorts are tall. How you bridge that gap decides whether your clip looks native or lazy.
Why not just letterbox?
Dropping a wide video into a tall frame with black bars leaves most of the screen empty and the action tiny. On a phone, that reads as a repost rather than a clip made for the platform.
Fill
Crop a tall slice out of the wide frame. Great when the action is centred — a character in a third-person game, a single on-screen subject. Use the position slider to keep the important part in view.
Facecam on top
Your webcam fills the top third; a crop of the gameplay fills the rest. This is the default for most streamers, because the reaction is half the content. Cliperly finds your facecam automatically when it stays in one place.
Fit with blurred background
The whole frame, shown full-width, over a blurred copy of itself. Use it when you can't crop anything away — strategy games, spreadsheets, full-screen UI.
Rule of thumb
If your face is the punchline, stack it. If the action is centred, fill. If everything on screen matters, fit.