Demo Reel Advice?

Hello Freinds,

First of all I'd just like to say how much I appreciate the quickness of the responses on this board, you guys have saved my butt on more than a few occasions and I am supremely grateful for having access to such a solid community.

Any way, I'm starting work on another demo reel pretty soon here, and was hoping to get some feedback. I know that no one answer is ever the only answer, but for the most part, is it better to have a slick dvd menu with all your work indexed in it's entirety, or take the best of the best and compile it into one shorter, denser piece? Or both?


Thanks in advance.

Great advice, gives me something to think about for sure.
Appreciate it.

Hi,

Yes, you're right, there is no one correct way to do a demo reel. In fact, if you came up with some kind of fascinating angle that blew people's minds you might create a whole new model for how demo's are done!

I like your idea of both a neatly indexed DVD menu with all your good stuff and more to see if the viewer has the time. Create your compilation piece and clearly indicate what it is in the menu so people who only have time to look at one thing will see your best stuff in a dynamic way. Then put your other segments after this "main" one.

Keep the sections short though, unless they are in your family, people watching demo reels generally have very little time and patience.

Best of luck,
Larry "Lawrence" Jordan
HDFilmtools.com

My reel is a lot like Steve's above- a DVD that auto plays a short overview video, about a minute, that leads to a main menu from which to select genre- promotional, training, event, entertainment, etc. that in turn takes you to a sub menu with a handful of full length programs. I added a running commentary track using a subtitling tool that explains the things that I would be normally commenting on if I were there with the person watching the disc- why we used a certain image, how we got it, budget and deadline concerns, and the occasional production anecdote to keep it interesting. There is an explanation in the packaging of how to turn the subtitles off.

Mikey

Studio 2 (FCP 6.0.6)
Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xenon
OS 10.6.8
6 GB Memory
www.moonfacemedia.com