What's a good length for a dive video?

[Hoag]

I shoot mostly still, however when I do shoot video, I will pick one or maybe two songs that are appropriate, and then edit the video to fit the length of the soundtrack. (On my last one, for a trip to Grand Turk, I used "Back to the Island" by Jimmy Buffett, and "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray. It made for a video slightly more than 7 minutes.)

My target audience is the group that were on the trip with me and my friends, so maybe my audience is willing to put up with a longer video. I try to have each "clip" at around 5-15 seconds.

 

[drbill]

Personally, my educational videos target a mature audience... one with an attention span greater than a minute or two. My travel videos may be 45-90 minutes and are targeted towards those who are interested in diving a specific destination and learning about topside amenities, dive ops and marine life. For my cable TV series ("Munching & Mating in the Macrocystis") each episode is 22 min. However, I also create shorter educational videos for film festivals, etc., that are educational and may last 5-10 minutes. For those who are attention span-challenged, I also produce 1-2 minute short subjects.

As for scene length, that is highly dependent on what is being portrayed. If I am merely presenting clips for species identification I may use several 5-10 second clips unless I need to point out detail that might not be obvious. If I am portraying interesting behavior, the scenes may be 30 seconds to longer than a minute to present the entire behavioral sequence.

As I mentioned, my videos are educational and include substantial voice over. I do find I often lose interest in videos that are set to music and are longer than about 3 minutes unless I know the locations or critters they are portraying.

 

[lermontov]

My current avg view time on my YT channel is six minutes and thirty eight seconds. I get exceptional view times because I have spent the time to build an audience. Regular viewers are the key to any success. It takes time and lots of content to build that audience.

The key to correct video length is - how long does it take to tell the story? Each video should tell a story. Begining, middle and end. A good guy and a bad. A journey, obstacles to overcome, victories to be won. Then you can return and "bestow boons" on your viewers. So only your story can dictate your videos length. Some stories can be told in 30 seconds. Others take hours, maybe days. If your audience is well groomed and religious followers, then they trust you and know what to expect from you. So they will invest the time. If you are looking for a one night stand. Then go short.

post a link to your vids so we can see fro ourselves

 

[lermontov]

the problem most of us have is were competing with something like national geographic or the like with professional camera people and big budgets. Uless we've got something pretty special its same old same old when it comes to dive videos. ive found there a few categories of videos, heres a few - a) instructional - where detail is more important than location and vid length is directly related to imparting the information b) adventure where your trip tells story it needs a climax and then a quick end. c) memory shots were its just for you and friends to view, length can be long but it only appeals to those on the trip as its usually pretty boring for anyone else d) promos, short informative with great shorts of fish life or other( see MV vid post #14)

 

[Carl Brooke]

So here is the story! I used to produce a show for network TV. "Travelers In Paradise" (tip) aired on Versus network, Now NBC Sports. It failed due to the financial demands inherent of network TV. Just to expensive of a medium. So I tried to talk my wife into doing just a YouTube vlog and building an audience organically. She refused. Said it would not work. So we are divorcing and as a test I started doing videos about my life up here in Alaska. I was homesteading and hated it. However, by creating regular videos I did build a small audience and I learned a lot. Now I am selling my place up here in Alaska, buying a sailboat and will be starting what has been my dream for my entire lifetime. I will be sailing around the world, Vlogging about sailing, scuba diving, free diving, spear fishing, fishing, etc. This approach takes all the logistic and location costs out of production. Making it feasible to produce the content. Here is some of the content we created while doing TIP. It is an overview of a re-breather. There is more in you care to look at the other videos on my old channel. Some from sailing last spring up here in Alaska.

https://youtu.be/Y14WkmdA_Ug
I hope you enjoy this, it is indicative of some of the content I wish to do. I am starting a new channel called "SERV Inanna". SERV means "Sailing. Exploration. Research. Vessel" Inanna was a Mesopotamian goddess who was able to descend into the underworld and return to the earth. Not to unlike how we submerge into the depths and return to the surface. So I thought her a fitting goddess to name my sailboat and channel after.

Please enjoy! Thanks

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Scuba porn should be kept short since the average attention span will climax at or about 2 minutes.