Editing a timelapse.... How long is too long?!?

[Jeff31M]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

 

[Mike CH]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

Single clips of 10-12 seconds sounds ok to me. Maybe even a bit longer, perhaps 30 seconds?

But if you combine it into 7 minutes total, I’m quite sure that I would never make it to the end.

Even more important to me would be the music, rather the absence. To me the less music, the better. Preferably soundless. Badly chosen music drives me away long before the length of the clip does.

Regards, Mike

 

[jp4]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

Single clips of 10-12 seconds sounds ok to me. Maybe even a bit longer, perhaps 30 seconds?

But if you combine it into 7 minutes total, I’m quite sure that I would never make it to the end.

Even more important to me would be the music, rather the absence. To me the less music, the better. Preferably soundless. Badly chosen music drives me away long before the length of the clip does.

Regards, Mike

 

[NottsPhoto]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

 

[SpiltMilk]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

Single clips of 10-12 seconds sounds ok to me. Maybe even a bit longer, perhaps 30 seconds?

But if you combine it into 7 minutes total, I’m quite sure that I would never make it to the end.

Even more important to me would be the music, rather the absence. To me the less music, the better. Preferably soundless. Badly chosen music drives me away long before the length of the clip does.

Regards, Mike

Abso-bloody-lutely. No damn music or very low and mellow (even for time lapse semi-action slo-mo)

I'd watch a 7 minute time lapse if it was interesting.

One rose opening for 7 minutes is not... but a montage of multiple flower types opening.. maybe a dozen over that 7 mins? Interesting!

But then... It'd be better, maybe, to see 12 separate 30 second TL's - the viewer can then chose what they want to watch.

Try both - make the full length TL then split it into "chapters".

 

[SpiltMilk]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

 

[jp4]

The previous comments re music are just plain wrong.

No, not wrong, just different opinions and no less valid than yours.

With time lapse music is crucial to driving the pace, keeping the narrative moving, and setting the mood.

so go in fast and hard...cut to the music, and keep it as short as possible to tell the story...



this is a case study for a big time lapse we produced last year.... note how we have our central key shot of the yard, and break this up with a lot of other bits...

https://pageonemedia.co.uk/timelapse-video-production/

Perfect example... of the music ruining the video, for me.

Yikes, I was gone in 5 sec. because of the music.

Photography is subjective enough.

Why trim down the size of your audience with another subjective element?

Both can work together, but... IMO, the more subjective elements, the smaller the appreciative audience.

 

[Matt Kolberg]

Every time lapse without music would be painful to watch. I'm surprised at the comments. Agreed that the choice of music is important, but to have none would just be gross, or at least a voice over.

 

[SpiltMilk]

Every time lapse without music would be painful to watch. I'm surprised at the comments. Agreed that the choice of music is important, but to have none would just be gross, or at least a voice over.

I'd turn a voice over video off as soon as i heard the voice.

Yes, music can enhance the video experience... but it needs to match the video, preferably low volume, mellow.

Take a TL of a flower blooming - soft mellow, even "romantic" music... maybe the same for a foal being born video.

Even something from "Dead Can Dance" -

Or Lisa Gerrard alone -

Imagine that in a foal being born TL! Awesome.

--
"I don't agree with what you say; it offends someone, somewhere, and I will take you to court to stop you saying it"

 

[nathantw]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

--
jeffwizniak.smugmug.com

The average attention span is really short, most of the time it's about 15" and 1'40" is about the limit to how long someone will watch before turning it off (definitely my limit)...unless the video really interests the person or is really, really interesting. I personally try to limit my videos to 1-2 minutes if I attach music to it. When I show people my video more times than not they're done within 15 seconds. I guess my videos don't hold their interest long enough.

https://www.youtube.com/user/nathantw

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathantw/
https://nathantwong.wordpress.com/
Always have a camera with you and make sure you use it.

 

[nathantw]

Even more important to me would be the music, rather the absence. To me the less music, the better. Preferably soundless. Badly chosen music drives me away long before the length of the clip does.

I agree 100%. However, recently I've been throwing music on them just because. I normally just put the generic Youtube music or my son's school band music.

 

[grsnovi]

You might be surprised by taking a look at the ASL (average shot length) numbers for movies and TV. Agreed that TL is a different animal but we've been conditioned! I recently heard that the opening 90 seconds of Aaron Sorkin's new movie has 100 cuts - which will probably seem like a roller coaster ride.

3 to 5 seconds seems to be the sweet spot for professionally produced movies/tv shows.

 

[SpiltMilk]

You might be surprised by taking a look at the ASL (average shot length) numbers for movies and TV. Agreed that TL is a different animal but we've been conditioned! I recently heard that the opening 90 seconds of Aaron Sorkin's new movie has 100 cuts - which will probably seem like a roller coaster ride.

3 to 5 seconds seems to be the sweet spot for professionally produced movies/tv shows.

And some people, I;m one of them, can't stand the jump-cut films. They do not last long in my player..

 

[Mike CH]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

 

[Mike CH]

You might be surprised by taking a look at the ASL (average shot length) numbers for movies and TV. Agreed that TL is a different animal but we've been conditioned! I recently heard that the opening 90 seconds of Aaron Sorkin's new movie has 100 cuts - which will probably seem like a roller coaster ride.

And will probably have me running out of the cinema within the first 60 seconds...
Regards, Mike

 

[NottsPhoto]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

--
jeffwizniak.smugmug.com

It depends on the story your telling...

you need to keep it interesting at all times, in particular in the nose of the video, where the vast majority of bounces take place.

The previous comments re music are just plain wrong.

Excuse me?

I explicitly said to me.

Are you always this arrogant? Just asking?

i think the arrogance lies with someone who purports to give advice but has no expertise... and then objects when someone with expertise disagrees and gives sound reasons from experience, backed up with hard data.

With time lapse music is crucial to driving the pace, keeping the narrative moving, and setting the mood.

To you, maybe. Absolutely not to me.

As an individual your sample size is too small to be representative.

this is a case study for a big time lapse we produced last year.... note how we have our central key shot of the yard, and break this up with a lot of other bits...

https://pageonemedia.co.uk/timelapse-video-production/

See, that’s exactly what I mean when the music drives me away. I couldn’t have found a better example; thank you for helping me prove my point

Regards, Mike

--
Wait and see...
I hardly ever speak for anybody but myself. In the cases where I do mean to speak generally the statements are likely to be marked as such.

And yet 13,000 people watched at least 90% of that video in the first 18 hours after release... it was produced with forethought for a particular audience.

If you don’t like the music or audio on a video, you can mute it...but it’s essential for the editing process, and in reality around 30% of video is now viewed muted on mobile devices.

Music is still essential though, it drives the pace of the edit and makes for a more engaging video... even with the audio muted.

Good timelapse is very difficult to pace... and cutting to a piece of music helps enormously to set the tone of a piece.

--
www.pageonephotography.co.uk
Striving hard to be the man that my dog thinks I am.

 

[graybalanced]

If there's more than one story told by those time lapses, instead of posting one long 10-minute video you could post several focused videos 30-90 seconds long.

That short length would help you drop any material that isn't absolutely your best work, it would be short enough that your audience will watch one and should want more, and sites like YouTube are totally set up for binge viewing so maybe what you do is set them up as a playlist so that people can watch all 10 minutes of videos if they let the autoplay run through the playlist.

This will also make your stats look better, because a long video is at risk of a high abandonment rate (users who don't make it to the end of the video). With short videos you are more likely to have users who watch all the way to the end.

 

[SpiltMilk]

Ever since I picked up my D850 from Nikon I have been playing around with the electronic shutter feature where it isnt supposed to burn out your shutter. It has been a fun challenge and I like setting up time lapses.

I have about 7 minutes of 10-12 seconds clips. However, I have a feeling that is too long and people will lose interest.

Can anyone comment as to what an ideal length might be?!?

 

[kiwi2]

I'd watch a 7 minute time lapse if it was interesting.

I find this one mesmerising...

 

[J A C S]

Every time lapse without music would be painful to watch. I'm surprised at the comments. Agreed that the choice of music is important, but to have none would just be gross, or at least a voice over.

Time lapses have music? I have my speakers muted unless I really want to listen to something.