What is the best length for an online comedy short?

I see lots of comments that say that 2min is too long and 3min is far too long. It is sometimes difficult to get your idea across in less than 90 seconds. What do you think?

There are a few long videos that really use every second well—like “what am i?” and “britain’s best mates.” I just think that usually what happens is that most long ones spend too much time on boring stuff, like a guy walking around, and not on stuff that moves the story forward. So it CAN be done, making a long funny video, it’s just that most people don’t seem to be able to.

Seems like the shorter the better nowadays. 7 minutes is like Ben-Hur. Sadly… most of my shorts are between 5 min and 20 min.

I recently posted a video that’s just over six minutes long and I know that a lot of people won’t watch anything over three minutes. That’s cool; I’m working on some other projects that are shorter. But six minutes seems pretty short when I’m also working on a screenplay that I’m trying to trim down to 100 pages or so (which is just over 90 minutes of screen time). Of course, this is the Internet, and very few people will sit and watch a feature-length movie on the web.

I basically agree with user “lyziwyg” that shorts can really be any length, in my opinion, up to 5 mins to stay funny. Longer than 5 minutes is pushing it, but there have been a few long and funny shorts such as Pearl’s comedies which no one can obviously resist, a couple vids from The Idea Men and the David Blaine Street Magic. There are a few others in my favs that I like over 3 minutes long, but like I said, it’s not that easy to humor someone over 5 minutes.

I too have dealt with mostly longer shorts. I made a video with friends this summer that was actually 15 minutes long and then we abridged that to 8 and that’s what I ended up posting here. We made another short film that was 20 so I didn’t even bother putting that here, just chopped it into four parts and put it on my YouTube page. As saltyunderpants pointed out, people aren’t going to watch long ass videos on the internet but, as a total amateur, I don’t know where else I could possibly get my stuff seen. I guess I just need to focus on things that can be executed much quicker.

Considering that a very hefty amount of people tend to watch these online shorts at work (when they’re supposed to be working), ~2 min is probably the sweet spot for maximum exposure. Long enough to get your point across, but not so long that the viewer risks getting caught jagging off on the company dime.

Unless im hooked right from the start less than a minute

I think the best live sketches are about 3:20 seconds… when we first got into this game, we thought the same would be true for video, but a little bit shorter, maybe a tad under 3 minutes. With more experience, I’d say that right around 1:45 is the least risky time. But it depends on the type of video—is it a commercial parody? Is it a scene? Is it a one joke throw away?

If its funny, you can keep people in there for a bit. That said, I can’t remember the last video that was longer than 4 minutes that I sat all the way through…

i rapidly scrolled past all these replies and i don’t even think i have an answer to the initial question that i didn’t fully read. that’s how shot my attention span is. after 2:23, you’ve usually lost me unless it’s gold.

29:21 is ideal

Comedy short-maybe 10 minutes at the most . . .