How Long Should Your Documentary Be?

What’s the ideal length for a feature documentary? I get this question a lot. Frankly, I think the majority of documentaries that screen at small film festivals are about ten percent too long.

When the audience begins to glaze over or feel restless, you’ve lost the opportunity to leave your viewer wanting more.

So how long should a documentary be? As long as it needs to be.

I first heard this truism from my mentor, Academy Award-winning editor Deborah Hoffmann, whose own personal documentary, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter, was 44 minutes long.

This unconventional length, which raised many eyebrows, turned out to be the perfect runtime for showing the film at community events and in university classes. She sold a record number of units through her distributor, Women Make Movies.

Now that I’m old and wise enough to mentor others, I’ve developed Debbie’s genius for running a pen through unnecessary words in an interview bite of a rough cut transcript, for example.

You can too.

Unless you are under the constraints of a predetermined runtime–for example, a 56:40 PBS length–I suggest that editors “cut till it bleeds!”

Ultimately you may decide to edit various lengths–a longish version for theatrical, a tighter version for television and an even shorter version for the web.

So how can you tell if your film is too long? Test out the rough cut. For my free guide on “How to Hold a Successful Documentary Rough Cut Screening,” go to:

https://newdocediting.com/client-resources/documentary_fil_rough_cut_screening

And for more insight into editing tight and compelling documentaries, check out my new five-week seminar that begins August 19th, Structuring the Three Act Documentary.

Register now to get $100 off the seminar price. I’ll take fifteen members. Note that my last seminar Structuring the Hybrid Documentary sold out, so don’t delay.

https://newdocediting.com/products/structuring-the-three-act-documentary