Gooseman 2old
lvl.3
Flight distance : 733829 ft
United Kingdom
Offline
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Fifteen Seconds?
I guess narrative pieces can be as long as the production team want, as long as the 'arc' can sustain interest until the denouement, just ask Christine Edzard, whose Little Dorrit ran for ten minutes short of six hours. But for non narrative (what I call poetry pieces) that land up on Vimeo and YouTube, less is definitely more.
Perhaps the two to three minute rule should apply to all non narrative' videos, not just ones made by pilots. Mine are sometimes a little longer, and I know that's bad. Call it Director's Cut Syndrome. If you want to get really upset about how little your masterful creativity is appreciated, just look a the stats on Vimeo that show the number of people who actually watch a video through to the end. It's an almost non existent number. I blame MTV for the goldfish length attention spans of viewers.
So the lesson is bung all the good stuff into the first minute, and then relax, as it seems the only people who let the video roll to the end are the one's who've either walked away to get beer or have fallen asleep.
It's entirely understandable. Some one has paid big $ for their drone/camera/bit of production value enhancing gear, they have learned how to use it, driven hours to the location, walked for hours to get above the tree line, waited in the cold for the rain to pass, kept away from angry land owners and risked all to get all the footage the batteries will allow. They have then driven home and spent until 3AM editing it, so damn right it's going to be a twenty minute video.
What we don't realise is that the viewer doesn't care what cost and effort was required or what risks were taken, they just want to look at the pretty pictures. Which is a bit depressing.
I am at my wits end with 'visual poetry' as a means of marketing my skills and letting existing clients keep up with what I am doing and inspiring them to call me. Even a two minute 'poetry' film is just not arresting enough. I am thinking my 'poetry' pieces are now going to be fifteen seconds long and consigned to facebook, instagram and Linkedin. Where I know I get a lot of traffic and I stand a small chance that someone just might be able to pay attention for more than the number of seconds it takes before they can no longer resist the urge to get a beer, or fall asleep, or grab their phone and post something to social media which no one will read to the end. |
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