— 01
Hold longer than feels safe.
The MB reel corpus averages five seconds per shot — three times slower than the platform norm of one to two. Eight seconds on a single shot is rarely too long; two seconds is rarely enough.
— Motion
What moves,
moves on the beat.
The brand's other tense. Motion lives in reels, in short films, in the small animations of the website. It carries the same restraint as the still work — but adds a single new instrument: the song. Every cut comes off the music, not off the visual.
— Principle
Song dictates the cut.
The single rule that organises every motion piece in this brand.
Every reel begins with the music. The selection is the first creative decision — tempo, mood, rhythm, the breath between phrases. Once chosen, the song decides everything else: where the cuts land, how long a frame holds, when the piece ends.
The image follows the song. The song carries the image. A frame holds for a phrase, a transition lands on a beat, the piece resolves on a final note. The viewer feels the cut without being told to — the music has already told them.
This is the inversion of standard editing — where music is laid over a cut. Here the music is laid first, and the cut is read off it.
— Cadence
Slow over fast.
Pacing follows the same gravity as the rest of the brand: restraint over urgency, breath over breathlessness, the long held frame over the rapid cut.
— 02
One transition vocabulary per piece.
Pick a single transition type — straight cut, dip-to-black, match-cut on motion — and use only that. Mixing transitions reads as indecision. Restraint scales.
— 03
No motion for motion's sake.
Every camera move (push, pull, pan, gimbal arc) earns its presence by revealing something. If the same frame would work as a still, leave it as a still.
— 04
Open and close on stillness.
A piece begins with a held frame and ends with one. Movement happens in the middle. The viewer leaves with a still image in the eye, not a fade.
— Specs
Three formats, three uses.
Aspect ratio and length follow the platform. Pick once at the start; do not re-cut for a different format mid-edit — the framing is part of the composition.
Vertical reel
Instagram Reels · TikTok · YouTube Shorts. The default for new motion work.
Landscape film
Website hero · YouTube long-form · gallery wall projection. The format that respects cinematic composition.
Square loop
Instagram feed · email signature loop. Short, looped, designed to feel infinite — like the pattern.
Frame rate · 30fps standard across reels and short films · 60fps for slow-motion drone passes only.
— Channel exports
One edit, one export per surface.
Each of the three formats has a primary destination. Export from the master ProRes — never re-encode an already-compressed H.264. Watermark on social only when the edit will be reposted off-account.
Channel
Aspect · Pixels · Length
Codec
Notes
Instagram Reel9:16 vertical
1080 × 192015–60s · 30fps
H.264 · 8–10 Mbps
AAC 128kbps
AAC 128kbps
The default surface for new motion work. Cover frame chosen at second 02 — never a black frame. Caption opens with the capsule name.
Instagram Story9:16 vertical
1080 × 1920≤15s per card · 30fps
H.264 · 6–8 Mbps
AAC 128kbps
AAC 128kbps
Repurposed clips from the reel master, not a separate edit. Subject within centre 60% — top/bottom 20% reserved for IG UI.
YouTube Shorts9:16 vertical
1080 × 1920≤60s · 30fps
H.264 · 10 Mbps
AAC 192kbps
AAC 192kbps
Mirrors the IG Reel cut at higher bitrate — YouTube tolerates more before quality degradation. Title must include capsule name; description carries the still-image link.
YouTube long-form16:9 landscape
3840 × 216060–180s · 30fps
H.265 · 35–45 Mbps
AAC 256kbps · stereo
AAC 256kbps · stereo
For capsule short films. 4K ProRes master archived locally; H.265 for upload. Chapter markers if length ≥ 90s.
Web hero loopmoadh.com landing
1920 × 10806–12s · 30fps
MP4 H.264 · 4–6 Mbps
WebM VP9 fallback
Silent · no audio track
WebM VP9 fallback
Silent · no audio track
Autoplays muted, loops seamlessly. Cut on a still moment so the loop point is invisible. Under 4MB per file. Poster frame loads first.
Email signature loop1:1 square
480 × 4804–6s · 24fps
GIF · ≤2MB
or animated WebP
or animated WebP
Dropped only into rich-format signature variant. Plain-text signature carries no media. Test in dark-mode clients before shipping.
Gallery / installation16:9 landscape
3840 × 216060–180s · 30fps
ProRes 422 HQ
or DNxHR HQX
or DNxHR HQX
For exhibition projection or large-screen plays. Audio mastered to -14 LUFS. Delivered on hardware drive — never streamed.
Press / partner sharematches request
1920 × 1080 defaultlength per request · 30fps
H.264 · 12 Mbps
AAC 192kbps
AAC 192kbps
Carries the wordmark in lower-right at 0.6 opacity. Watermarked unless the partner is licensed for an unmarked cut (rare).
i
Master once, export many.
The colour grade and the cut live in a single ProRes 422 HQ master at 3840 × 2160 / 30fps. Every channel export is a transcode from that master. Never re-encode an H.264 — quality compounds downward. If a capsule has both vertical and landscape destinations, cut both edits in parallel from the same project, not by reframing one to the other.
— Sound
Music is voice.
Sound design is part of the brand voice — not a layer added after. The same restraint applies: one instrument earns more attention than seven.
01
Music chosen, not generated.
Every piece uses real music — licensed, attributed, considered. Never library stock that any brand could buy. The song is part of the work.
02
Silence is permitted.
A piece can hold its breath. Diegetic sound — wind, water, footsteps — sometimes carries more weight than music. Pick silence when the image is loud enough on its own.
03
No voice-over.
The brand does not narrate itself. If a piece needs explanation, it has not been edited tightly enough. Let captions do the explaining where they must.
04
Audio attribution.
Track and artist are credited at the end of every piece. A small line in mono type, lower-right, under the brand anchor.
— Discipline
What the motion leaves out.
The same negative rules as the still work — translated to time.
— 01
Kinetic typography.
No animated text overlays, no scrolling captions, no words flying in. Type appears as title cards or end credits — held still, on a clean ground.
— 02
Speed ramps as filler.
Slow-motion is a deliberate choice for a specific subject. Never used to pad a cut or "make it cinematic" — the cinematic comes from the frame, not the speed.
— 03
Filters and LUT presets.
The footage is colour-graded by hand to match the still photography rules — warm reads warm, cool reads cool. No preset look. No "cinematic" filter.
— A closing note
A reel is a still photograph that took its time.
Motion is the same brand, with one extra instrument. The song decides; the rest follows.
