length of slideshow

[sti65]

Hi All

I wish to make a show for family and friends of holidays etc.

In your opinion what length should a slideshow be? I do not wish to bore people just want them to enjoy.

Charlie

[thedom]

Hi Charlie,

I think it depends mainly of your pictures.

And were those people with you in holidays ? Can they see themselves on the photos ?

Are the photos interesting in themselves ? nice landscapes ? photos from an other country ? Original and/or artistic pictures ? ...

Anyway, I think your show shouldn't be longer than 10 minutes maximum.

And I recommend you to make at least 2 several parts (by theme by example) and for each, a different music.

Hope it helps.

[jfa]

I

wish to make a show for family and friends of holidays etc.

In your opinion what length should a slideshow be?

G'day Charlie

This is an important question and there is much debate on the subject. It depends greatly on the purpose of the AV, subject matter, sound track and who the intended viewing audience will be.

In general 10 minutes is about the limit for most "general purpose" shows for the public. If you check most AV competitions/exhibitions you will find they have a limit of around 10 minutes. Longer than this most viewers will loose concentration, no matter how good the show. This is probably the result of the "wham bang TV world" we have been feed for some 40+ years. Also these days people are highly visually literate.

A show for family and friends can be longer as they will relate to the people/events in the show more than the general public. For me I would still keep the show tight and go no longer than 15-18 minutes for family and friends . I once sat through a 45 minute show of a friends granddaughters life from birth to her 21st birthday. While my friend was an excellent photographer I found this a test of my endurance after 15 minutes. However her immediate family loved the show and asked to see it again.

[ksf]

Hi Charlie,

That's a bit like asking "How long is a piece of string?".

John has offered some good tips and keeping to a maximum of 10-12 minutes should be more than enough. But there are many more things to consider: What sort of music you are going to use, and how long is it? Are you having a commentary? How many images are you going to show and how long do they each need to be on screen for? (different images will need different durations plus it is good to vary the pace in any case), ... etc etc

You may find that once you start making it, the sequence might find its own length and if you find that it "feels" too long then you could perhaps split it into a number of shorter sequences. Maybe one of just the family, one of the scenery etc. Also depending on how proficient you are with photoshop (or similar) you could montage several images into one to reduce the overall number of images.

As I hope you are starting to appreciate it is very much down to what feels right for you, your images, the purpose of the sequence, the intended audience and so on. It can also be a good idea to show a preview to someone to get their reaction to it before showing it to your main intended audience.