Releasing a doco on YouTube - what is the appropriate length?

R

rc444

Well-known member
I am releasing a 21 minute cat documentary on YouTube. I am thinking of two ways of presenting the doco:

* As a two part web series; each part is 10-11 minutes long.
* As a three part web series; each part is 7 minutes long.

The client whom I'm making the cat doco for will receive a two part doco (easier to watch than a 21 minute doco) and I am just deciding on whether to go for two parts or three parts for the YouTube release.

Any leanings on what is the best way to split these clips?

Thanks
rc444
 
The question is, are there good places to split the film up into either 2 or 3 parts? Each part needs to end with a bit of a tease or cliffhanger so that viewers will want to see more. You can't just take a 21 minute film and chop it into segments. I mean, you CAN, but it may not be a very good idea.
 
David W. Richardson said:
The question is, are there good places to split the film up into either 2 or 3 parts? Each part needs to end with a bit of a tease or cliffhanger so that viewers will want to see more. You can't just take a 21 minute film and chop it into segments. I mean, you CAN, but it may not be a very good idea.
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agree with this unless you planned it that way from the begin than cut it as 3 parts but if i make a doc i know exactly how i am going to release it at least initially before editing.. pacing is more important to me when watching and you could break it up and a person may never get to the 3rd part
 
One of the things to consider is that viewing habits on YouTube, including attention span, are significantly different from broadcast TV. Many YouTubers would argue that 5-7 min is the optimum. Having in the past a travel channel, I'd say that anything longer than 7 min would be generally too much for YouTube.

Also, Google actually tracks the time any video is watched (and this data are available for channel owners) and calculates the average time any video is watched. Even if there are many hits, if such number is low relative to the total length of the video, Google will rank it lower with many implications (for example, its search ranking or advertising if its enabled). Some Web series producers I know create episodes of not longer than 4-5 minutes. One of my friends has a rather successful channel where most of videos are from 20 to 40 seconds.

But I will also say that if the content is really good that shouldn't affect the popularity of the video. There are plenty of examples that prove this as well.
 
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