Humans of New York set to become Facebook-exclusive documentary series

Since 2010, photographer Brandon Stanton has sought to catalogue the inhabitants of New York City using portraits and interviews hosted on his photo blog. The project has boasts 18m followers on Facebook, has spawned two bestselling books and has led to Stanton travelling to almost 20 countries, covering the European migrant crisis and interviewing then-President Barack Obama.

Now the project is being transformed into a 12-part documentary series that will be hosted on Facebooks redesigned Watch tab. The series is one of the few long-form projects funded by Facebook, which has so far focused largely on short-form video from publishers like The Dodo and Vox Media.

The Humans of New York series will consist of 12 30-minute episodes, collecting more than 400 days-worth of filming and interviews with over 1,200 people. Stanton began work on the videos four years ago, long before Facebook became involved, and the series will be executive produced by Oscar-nominated documentary producer Julie Goldman, who has worked on films including Weiner and Life, Animated.

“The key to all film, really, and certainly to the documentary films we do, is storytelling,” said Goldman, speaking to the Hollywood Reporter. “This is storytelling at its core, at its most visceral. That really appealed to us. People really open themselves up in a way that continues to surprise me.”

The series is set to launch on Facebook Watch next week, with episodes released weekly. The Watch platform is still being rolled-out to users, so how widely available the series will be upon inital release is not yet known.

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