That edit buddy told me I was killing my footage with jump cuts

I used to cut out every single pause in my talking head videos. He said it made me look like a glitchy robot and viewers were clicking off at 2 minutes. I tried leaving in some natural silence and my retention shot up 40% on the last three videos. Anyone else have an editing habit they had to break?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_campbell469d ago

So you're saying keeping in the dead air actually helped? I've got the opposite problem where I leave too much pause and people tell me my videos drag. How long are the silences you're keeping in now?

the_spencer8d ago

Ray Campbell, I was watching this video editor talk about pacing the other day and he said something that stuck with me... silence should be there to let the moment breathe, not just fill space. For me, anything over 4 seconds starts feeling slow unless something visual is happening. Maybe try cutting those pauses down to half what they are and see if the rhythm picks up. I read somewhere that the average viewer taps away after 2 seconds of nothing happening, so there's probably a sweet spot between no silence and too much.

kim_johnson519d ago

Ha @ray_campbell46 I had to unlearn "look at me I'm filming so every word must be spoken" and now my silence is like a full three to five seconds on purpose, longest pause I kept was 7 seconds and nobody skipped it.