How long is too long???

irishmark · #1 (**permalink**) 10-11-2005, 11:18 PM

So I'm sitting here at my brothers place Rendering out a DVD - The lone render wait!!! I'm sure many of you have been here before. Most times I get on the other machine and look at other people's videos and I've noticed the same constant thing happening.

Whenever I watch a video that's longer than say 5 mins I usually get very bored and kill it. Sometimes it's down to a loose edit or its just dull but it begs the question - How long is too long for a Web Video?

Considering the fact that when someone clicks a vid they are commiting their time to watching it. Not that its a huge commitment but I find when I click on summat and I see it's 10 mins long my head is already expecting it to be dull. Dont get me wrong not every lengthy video is like this - The Teamfishcake lot always do an excellent job. But in most cases I've seen, unless it's a music video the same video could be cut down to half the length.

I dunno, I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else finds themselves in a similar mindset or am I just impatient?

Andy Lockwood · #2 (**permalink**) 10-11-2005, 11:22 PM

No mate. Spot on. Five minutes is about my limit too usually, unless my interest has really been piqued.

BigBadWimp · #3 (**permalink**) 10-11-2005, 11:47 PM

I think that says alot about the level of talent in the people who post the vids. It's very hard to be creative enough with a script, acting, editing and an overall product to hold someone's attention for ten minutes. There's a reason so few aspiring filmmakers/ actors/ writers make actual films you'll see in the theatres.

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 10-12-2005, 05:12 AM

I normally make a judgement call after about 10 seconds.

Mihai · #5 (**permalink**) 10-12-2005, 09:16 AM

In TV news there's a rule of thumb saying that any piece should be limited to 3 mins.

Mike Thorpe · #6 (**permalink**) 10-12-2005, 10:51 AM

*removes Mark's tongue*

I've always babbled on about The Short Attention Span Of The Broadband Generation - people want snappy quick things bouncing around the screen these days, and seeing as it dosen't take an hour to download a video clip of reasonable length any more, people aren't as inclined to be patient, as they know they can get another one in a matter of minutes.

The shorter the better really. Looking back on the videos I've done, the ones that are over, say, 3 or 4 minutes long, I have spotted bits that I could have cut out to keep it a bit shorter.