how many seconds for cutaways

There's no way to answer that question. There are too many variables. The word STOP in white letters on a black screen you can seen in a couple of frames. The other factor is how large the image is that the viewer is seeing.

i've been cutting news packages in the UK for 18 years now and i always teach others that a cut away should be on screen for at leat 3 seconds

ian

I would suggest, _as long as it takes_ for the cutaway to accomplish it's task
always using the shortest time practicable.

A few frames to a few seconds depending on the actual content. Grab an unbiased viewer to scrutinize (proof watch) your work. Things they NOTICE most likely need adjusting.

Al

watch a few news reports and see how long the cutaways are used for - you'll soon get a feel for how long you can keep a cutaway on screen. Ian's advice is sound - I'd go with 2-3 secs.

I am glad Alchroma told you to get someone else to view the effect.

Because we are intimately connected with the film, we can read the titles or register what is happening very quickly.

Others watching the film for the first time take much longer.

This is one of my grumbles about the modern cinema in its quest for movies with pace. Frequently vital pieces of action or newspaper headlines flash briefly on the screen and can be missed easily, rendering the film almost unintelligible from that point.

The film makers will argue that it is plenty long enough but they of course, knowing the film so well, are not the best judges of how long an item should appear for new viewers.

Oh! For the good old silent days, when a two line caption remained on-screen long enough for even the most dyslexic of us to read it ( aloud ).

Ian.

I'd also like to suggest that the flow of the story, dialogue, questioning can determine the length of a cutaway. While 2-3 seconds seems like enough, longer may flow better when other elements of the production are considered.

Ross Hunter
Orange, VA