How long should a hunting video be?

[TUCO]

Casey is exactly right about the 10 seconds….

Sean, folks have a short attention span, when it comes to video, and get bored with looking at the same thing for more than about 10 seconds.

Use short clips with basic transitions (dissolve/fade) that tell us a story……

If you have good footage of deer interacting, posturing, laying their ears back, showing aggression etc., include the choice segments of those clips.

If the only footage you have is a deer eating corn under a feeder for five minutes and then you shoot him, it doesn’t leave you much to work with…..

It is not very entertaining to watch a video when all the camera man shows you is like a doe, or a group of hogs, that run in to the feeder and mill around for a few minutes then the archer shoots one, and the animal runs off, & then he does a recap….BORING!
I mean come on …..Use that imagination God gave you…….

The clip doesn’t even have to have a kill in it; just good footage that keeps your attention.

Take short clips of every aspect of the hunt; from the ride to where you park to the walk into the stand-to a brief description of the certain buck & area you are hunting-to grabbing your gear-to getting in and out of the stand-glassing with you binos-drawing your bow-checking the wind-arrow on the string-clipping on your release-and include a few seconds of any other wildlife you encounter while you are on the stand; squirrels rabbits, quail, coyotes, armadillos….whatever comes by. And keep the recovery, & recap short as well.
Then use those clips to build your story.

You can squeeze a lot of short clips into 2 or 3 minutes of video…

The more clips you have of the different aspects of your hunt; the better of a story you will be able to tell.

And camera support is a must; nothing worse than shaky video....

[gonehuntin68]

I like under 2 minutes. Show me the shot and then the shot in slow mo. If something unique happens then show that too. I don't want to see the animal walking in from 300 yards out and all the BS leading up to the shot or walking around eating corn for 10 minutes.

[brunner]

Here's mine and some TBHers said it was still too long.

I took 90 minutes of video in to under 6 minutes.

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I AGREE, PLAY EMBEDDED VIDEO

[Skinny]

I like the 3 second rule myself. It's hard to do sometimes, but if you keep you individual clips as short as possible, then it keeps people's attention.

As far as total length of the video, well, that kinda depends on the story you are telling. If it was a quick hunt with a short storyline, then the vid will be real short...if you have a lot of footage and the storyline is a bit longer, then your vid will be longer.

I'm all about instant entertainment...especially YouTube videos. I like to keep my videos under 5 minutes if possible, mainly because that is about all the time I like to spend on a video myself.

Added: If you are a good camera man, take good, steady footage, and lots of it, you should be able to tell your story without saying a word...and if you are a decent editor, your 5 minutes videos will hold the viewer's attention better and your video will seem a lot shorter than it really is.

Skinny