Documentary Length Problem

Over the past couple of months, I have been working on my documentary, baring in mind that it must accumulate put o around 5 minutes. During majority of the the filming an editing process, I was wasn't entirely sure how I would be able to make it long enough, however my problem now is that my documentary is too long. My documentary is currently 6 just over 6 minutes long, with all the scene I wanted included. I have edited my documentary and I'd consider it 95% done, and now all I need to do is edit the little features that will make the quality 100%. This final 5% that needs to be edited now includes trimming down little scenes as much as possible in order to allow it to meet the 5 minute limit.

One scene I significantly cut down is the interview with Jocelin Francis. This interview is essentially the longest scene out of the whole documentary, as it lasts around two and a half/ three minutes. This scene was quite clearly the one that took up the most space, therefore I decided to start with this scene and cut it it down significantly. One particular thing that I got rid of is a section where he speaks about how much he spent on the studio. During this, he took a pause for around 4-6 seconds and there wasn't any audio worth keeping in. By doing this, it got rid of unnecessary time that wasted. I continued to do this throughout the rest of the documentary by simply cutting little 2/3 second spells out in order to cut it dramatically overall.

Another scene I cut is the very first scene. This shows the group in the studio at Relentless after their Fivers video shoot, and it is them free styling over some music in the background. This clip lasts around 25-30 seconds, before the documentary even starts. Although this scene is very influencial and needed, it is a very long scene considering that it is the first one and the audience have absolutely no context as to what they're watching. Because of this idea, I decided to to cut it in half so that it lasts for only around 10/15 seconds, and the audience don't get confused. By only having this for about 15 seconds, it chucks the audience in to the action straight away without them becoming too confused.

One final thing that I did in order to cut the time down is the put all the little gaps I had together. By doing this, it managed to get rid of around 10 seconds worth of empty footage, and allows it to final come under 6 minutes. This was also done to finally give the documentary clear arrive and allowed the whole thing to make sense altogether.

There are still tiny little adjustments that need to be made, however there is one less problem now as the documentary is now under 6 minutes and is approximately five and a half minutes. Little sound and visual features need to be edited but they can be sorted at a later date.