Make it snappy. How snappy? As a rule of thumb, five minutes tops. For one thing, short plus simple equals practical: you're far more likely to finish shooting and editing short projects than long ones. For another thing, your viewers are more likely to remain alert and receptive, not to mention present.
What if you shot five hours of tape on your Hawaiian cruise? Sorry. No matter how much it kills you, cull it down to five minutes. All right, maybe ten, but no more than that. You can take it as an iron law that no one else on the planet is even ten percent as interested in your footage as you are. Give viewers only the very best of the very best of those five hours and they'll be pleasantly surprised and lavish in their praise. Force-feed them everything you want to see and you'll say Aloha forever to that group of vi…
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