Inspirations: Gunshop Demo Reel and Demo Reel Tips
By Michele Yamazaki on Jan 17, 2012 at 09:06 AM
Check out the current Gunshop demo reel, which shows a variety of styles combining live footage, 2D and 3D. It is a magnificent example of what a demo reel should be.
These demo reel tips are mainly going out to the college kids who are new on the scene. I taught After Effects at an art college and I was suprised at how bad most of the reels were - too long, repetitive, full of not so good work, using the same music as other students and companies, poor editing. I could honestly say I probably only saw 1-2 good reels in the 4 years I taught. Some of these tips are pretty obvious but they are often overlooked. Here's my advice for putting together a demo reel that will get you noticed.
- It shows the best, eye-catching samples are shown and nothing is shown twice. There's a great variety in style and content for multiple clients as well.
- It's short - about a minute is all you need to sell yourself. Don't lose your audience. Many people have the attention spans of fruit flies (like me!)
- It features interesting, compelling music that appears to be original. Be unique and stand out.
- It's edited to the music and really moves, making you want to see more. Always leave them wanting more.
- Make sure viewers of your reel know how to get in touch with you. Put your contact info in the video - just an email, url or phone number is enough. If you're hosting on Vimeo or YouTube, a link in the description works too.
- Keep the video quality high and use a service like Vimeo that will stream your clips in HD. Skip the DVDs. It's an added cost and many will go ignored. People are much more likely to click a link than go to the effort of putting in a DVD. Just send a link via email and have it embedded in your resume, on your website, on your LinkedIn, etc. Don't be afraid to host on multiple sites. YouTube and Vimeo already have a built in user base. Use that to your advantage.
- Keep a high quality version on your smartphone. You don't know how many times I've been at events and have been shown work by students and peers. Yes, it's not the best means of showing work but it gives you an introduction and will hopefully pique a potential client or employers curiousity about your work. This is a great reason to keep it short - at a social gathering, you don't want to take up too much of your future client/employers time. You just want to make an impression.
- If you do not have permission from a client to use their work in a demo reel or to show it, you can always upload to Vimeo and make it a private link with a password. This will not show up in search results and you'll be able to selectively share your work. Of course, you'll want to use discression here but I know this is a common issue for artists and editors.
Posted in Inspirations, Tutorial and tagged inspirations(64), demo reel(1)
