Often subtly understood and wholly accepted a story being told orally or in writing is far more better in value to how short and “to the point” it is. Concision should be the primary factor in all storytelling processes whatever format the story is being delivered in or platform it is being disseminated on—be it a book, movie, internet article, symposium, or lecture series. Concision serves as the attention-getting approach to a media-saturated world flooded by information coming at all angles in today’s given society. Concision is also an effective means of communication where being articulate and creative serves in “hitting home” on the morale of the story and the story’s major and minor lessons. As in a book stories delivered through films are produced with the intention for concision entirely because of TRT (total run time).

Marketable audiences greatly consume a product that is carefully articulated and profoundly summed up in a concise, lucid way. The best YouTube videos—in the sense of viewership counts—are the content that is produced in a certain time-frame—2-5 minutes mostly. Catchy and quickly understood commercial advertisement works well in memory and—eventually consumer dollars. News pieces reported on through regional and international agencies and various media outlets come in around a minute or two in running time per package. Audiences bent on getting the news must attain it in clever soundbite reporting that often fits well in this era of Twitter one-liners. Meanwhile, diverse audiences that consume entertainment want it to be fast, quick, easy to get and understand and pin down without verbosity and long-run material just to get at a point. Thus, there is a place for brevity in media products.

In the growing and influential world of documentary filmmaking producers and directors must constantly yield to concision for the most effective impact on their work(s). Here, on-camera interview soundbites are quick and to the point, narration is terse in language organized with proper and profound diction, and even camera shots (b-roll material) and cinematography dare not be long and inundated. Editors working in this terrain under the watchful gaze of directors, producers, and even executive producers must shift to the highest common denominator for concision in their work by “cutting off all the fat” in documentary film material even if it comes down to frame-by-frame.

Concision is not easy to do nor does it come without harm to the art and the information of a documentary film. On the one hand, while concision is so effective in capturing the largest number of potential audience members on any given topic it often oversimplifies complex realities delivered through serious research and investigative work. Oftentimes sensationalized headlines in truncated one-liners and “to-the-point” soundbites by those who are interviewed on the storyline undervalue and under-report stories that are deep to understand. Besides the fact that much of documentary filmmaking intricately delves into the gray reality of complex stories shaped by through-lines whether historic in mark or psychological convoluted or even sociologically elaborate concision—if not done with the right measure—may do more harm than good. Filmmakers often must tread a fine line from the impetus of a new film project to its very end.

In a globalized world where most industries operate with the emphasis that “time is money” concision serves as the apparatus and conduit to effective storytelling and reporting. For documentary films to be an effective tool for learning and a key societal value for didactic, engrossing, revolutionary, bonafide, inspiring, educational, and intellectually-engaging, visual-spatial work concision is the only way to go. And, the attempt to be concise will begin as early for filmmakers upon the first draft of a written treatment or when the grant proposal is submitted for funding. Heck, even budgets are concise and to the point—leaving little room for overhead, contingency, or error.