Doodly Intermediate Tutorial

Proper scene length in Doodly

Intermediate Tutorial #4
Shows an image example and explains why having too many scenes or too many layers in a Doodly video production is bad and will cause layer lumping and scene jumping.

Scene Length

This documentation is intended to provide answers to questions about scene length and how to determine when a line has been crossed from being engaging to losing a viewers attention.

When is a scene too long?

This highly depends on whether you have a voiceover. Doodly is one huge scene is you stop and think about the mechanics behind the software. We have simplistic scene transfers between scenes but it is one canvas after another.

To really answer this question we need to answer some questions.

Things to consider

Layer maintenance
The more layers that are added the more difficult the scene becomes to maintain, organize and control. We can only see a specific amount of layers within the program. Beyond that the layers become increasingly difficult to work with, especially with the tiny scrollbars Doodly provides.

Layer Jumping
This is where you click on a layer in the wrong spot and it jumps to the top layer in the layers section. It is quite an inconvenience and the more assets on the canvas, the more layers in the layers section to search through or try and find the layer that jumped taking up more time.

Each asset adds more time onto the render time of that scene. These times vary whether it is a text, image or a Doodly provided SVG asset.

With Voiceover
Our scene has to match the voiceover but there should be breaks in that voiceover to allow for a scene transfer. Plan your voiceover wisely. Too long of a scene and your viewers attention can fade losing you a potential sale, like subscribe or other.

Without a voiceover
Make the scenes quick. Keep the viewer's attention. A long scene is a really fast way to lose the viewers attention.


Animation in Doodly

Exceptions

  1. An image asset being revealed with properly designed reveal paths. The revealing itself has the potential to keep the viewer's attention.

  2. Providing a connecting effect using Key framing animation in doodly. Our scene transition video explains keyframing at 34 minutes 12 seconds into the video.

Note: I try to keep each scene around 16 second maximum or less.

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to the most common questions regarding this topic.

The ideal duration for a single canvas depends heavily on your audio and audience, but a good rule to follow is keeping each one under sixteen seconds. If you do not have spoken audio, you should make the visual transitions even faster to maintain audience engagement.

You need to think about the age group and focus levels of your viewers, the presence of background music or spoken audio, and how many visual items are crowded onto the screen. If the canvas becomes too cluttered or the main topic changes, it is usually best to transition to a new canvas.

Adding numerous items makes the project difficult to organize and control because the software only displays a limited number of layers at a time. Furthermore, every additional graphic or text block increases the total time it takes for the software to process and export the final video.

This problem happens when you accidentally click an item on the canvas incorrectly, causing it to shoot straight to the top of your workspace list. When you have numerous graphics on the screen, searching through a massive list to find and fix the misplaced item wastes a significant amount of time.

Yes, you can maintain viewer focus for longer periods if you use carefully designed drawing paths for your images. Additionally, utilizing key framing techniques to create seamless connecting effects can keep the audience captivated without needing a quick canvas change.

About the author

Wayne Leiser
Wayne Leiser
Editor & Contributor
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