Just wanted to know what you guys and girls think is a good length for an episode for a sitcom for YouTube. Don't want it to be too short as it would seem more sketch show like but don't think people would tend to watch a 30 minute YouTube video. Any help would be greatly appreciated
I think a 10-20 minute episode would be a good length. If the sitcom was funny, I'd watch a 30 minute episode but people have much lower attention spans these days.
Ten Minutes absolute maximum in my opinion.
Especially if you hope to use it as a springboard to bigger things - no ProdCo is going to spend more than that watching it.
5/10 mins forces you to get to the point & edit brutally - the thing 99.9% of web comedies FAIL to do.
If you get any traction, you might try something longer.
I would say videos no longer than 5 minutes, episode could possibly 10 and split it into two parts on YouTube.
It's all open to interpretation, though. Nobody has figured out all the answers for web comedy yet. Prank videos and cats sneezing are going to be more popular than sitcom, so to some extent don't worry so much about views. Are you hoping for mainstream/viral success, or just catching the attention of prodcos and comedy nerds like us? If it's the latter, then do what best serves your story.
Same for production values -- is your show best served as a glossy TV thing? If so, it might hurt it to put it out to the public as a low-rent web vid (although sending that sort of stuff to producers can work). If it's something that's tailored to a lo-fi thing, or you've got the money/people to produce something slick, just disregard this.
Definitely agreed with Lazzard, don't have a baggy edit.