How do you make a vertical 9:16 Christmas video that works with the sound off?
Most of it plays muted, on a phone, in a Reels feed. Put the gift on screen in the first frame, not the logo. Write the price and the shipping cutoff as text, large, centered clear of the caption bar at the bottom and the buttons on the right. Read the whole thing back with the sound off before you approve it — if it only makes sense with narration, it fails on mute. Keep it to 1080 x 1920, fifteen seconds for a single gift, thirty if you're covering three price points. The studio composes it from your product photos and your site's colors and fonts; narration is optional, captions aren't.
Formats
9:16 · 1:1 · 16:9
Length
5-60 seconds, 15 or 30 seconds typical
Where it runs
Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels
From the guide to christmas
Square and vertical, one cut per recipient
Render 1:1 for the feed and 9:16 at twenty seconds for Stories and Reels, where gift lists get saved and sent on. Make a version per recipient type, for the cook, for the gardener, for the new parent, since each is a different search in someone's head. Add a late cutoff-reminder cut that changes only the date card, and keep every version to re-render next December.
Make a Christmas Video With Gift Picks, Prices and Your Shipping CutoffFrom the guide to vertical 9:16
Length, placements and export
Vertical runs on Instagram Reels and Stories, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels and Stories. Ask for 5 to 60 seconds; 15 seconds suits a single offer and 30 covers an offer plus proof. Export is H.264 MP4 with AAC audio at 30 fps, ready to upload, or post it straight to Instagram, Facebook Pages, TikTok and YouTube from the studio after you review it. Pull a PNG poster from any frame for the thumbnail.
Vertical 9:16 video ads, rendered at 1080x1920 from a chat briefA brief you can paste
Paste this into the studio chat, or change the names and numbers first.
A 15-second vertical Christmas video for our candle shop. Open on a lit candle being wrapped in tissue paper, then two more gift options at different prices stacked quickly. On-screen text: gift, price and 'order by Dec 18 for Christmas delivery' held for three full seconds. Warm instrumental music, cuts on the beat. No narration, captions only. End on the shop name and a plain background, middle of the frame kept clear for the caption bar.
Questions people ask
Does the video need narration if it's mostly watched muted?
No. Narration is optional and the studio can generate it, but the on-screen text and captions have to carry the price, the gift and the cutoff date on their own. Treat narration as a bonus layer for the sound-on viewer, not the message itself.
Where do captions sit so they don't get covered on Reels or TikTok?
Keep the shipping cutoff and price in the upper two-thirds of the frame. The bottom strip is where captions, usernames and share buttons sit on Reels, Stories and TikTok, and that area is covered for the whole video, not just a few seconds.
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Make this video today
Describe it in a sentence, review the plan and the price, approve, and download the MP4 or post it to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube.