Watch the movie with a stopwatch and a notepad. Notice that the camera shots are from two to a maximum of seven seconds long. Seven seconds is the longest shot. Most of the shots are close to three seconds. And many of the seven second shots are zooming in or out. What does that mean to you?
That seven seconds might be all you have to hold your listener's attention. Go ahead see how much you can say in seven seconds. If it is all in the same "shot" you might have lost your listener. How long did it take you to read this post? Yeah - start thinking seven second shots for your message.
When you speak you are competing with all the other forms of communication your audience experiences.
George Torok
Executive Speech Coach
Presentation Skills Seminars
Executive Speech Coach, Business presentation tips from George Torok, the Speech Coach for Executives.
Awesome post! It's really helpful for me for business presentation.
ReplyDeleteThis is appalling advice and further down the road to hell in creating the ADHD afflicted generation who cannot focus for more than 7 seconds.
ReplyDeleteIf you can't hold anyone's attention for more than 7 seconds, cutting your points to 6, 5, 4 or any other amount of seconds will not help.
Film is a visual medium completely unlike personal presentation and trying to apply a hyperkinetic editing approach of action movies .. to live presentations is a big mistake and one that suggests the author does not understand the difference.