My Totally Awesome Film Reel

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TotallyWolf1987

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Heyyyyy everybody what's happening? My name's Andrew and I just wanted to share my Film reel here on the Final Cut Pro board. My specialty is Video Editing and I wanted to show off some exmaples through my demo reel (graduated June 2009 and still can't find work; thanks economy) soooo check it check it!

Vimeo.com/TotallyAwesomePro
 
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JoeFowler said:
What's up with your link?
Click to expand...

It's not entered into the post as a link, but if you type it in manually it takes you to his Vimeo user page. Do not include the "......" in the URL.

About the demo reel...

Honestly, it was terrible. And I usually try to put a positive spin on these things.

- The safe assumption is that any prospective director or producer who may be watching your reel will see everything s/he needs to see in the first :30. That first :30 is your excruciatingly long (and not very polished) title sequence. Ditch it. Go straight into the best of your best footage, with perhaps a title card (minimal animation) that lasts no longer than 5 seconds.

- The graphics you use are suited for public access cable. Not very attractive for a professional reel.

- Much of the footage was quite over/underexposed, grainy, or plagued with bad lighting. Pick your absolute best and put that up front. Weed the rest out.

- Lots of the shots repeated, not necessarily with the same exact clips but with the same scenes. You made a reel well over 3 minutes when it could have been less than half that, and it would have been more effective.

- Fix aspect ratios. The Vimeo upload is flagged as HD, even though in your description you say it's SD. And it's 16:9, yet there are some letterboxed 16:9 clips that are stretched to fit the true 16:9 frame, including the titles (which are thus difficult to read). It just looks unprofessional. You should be able to maintain proper aspect ratios... failure to do so can be a deterrent for potential employers. As a side note, with the basic (free) Vimeo account, you can upload one HD video per week.

- Avoid excuses in your video description. Telling viewers "the original was x, but now it's y because of z" shows lack of confidence. If you're going to put a reel out there, put it out there for what it is and let it do the talking. In fact, forgetting a written description altogether may be better, or simply describing it as "Andrew Wolf 2011 Demo Reel" would suffice.

- Labeling yourself and your reel as "totally awesome" can get in your way. It may have been a cool/funny idea to you and your friends in high school and college, but in the real world it comes across as amateur.

- Covering a "jack of all trades" reel is also a road block. Prospective employers don't want to have to wade through three or four different skill sets to find what they want. Focus on your camera work. Further, the "scriptwriting" section was all but pointless as little lines of dialog here and there say nothing of your overall writing abilities. Plus, the dialog all comes from the right channel, which is not good.

So, trim it down and ditch the graphics. Wrangle in your letterboxed clips where needed, and use only the footage you absolutely need to show.
 
C2V said:
It's not entered into the post as a link, but if you type it in manually it takes you to his Vimeo user page. Do not include the "......" in the URL.

About the demo reel...

Honestly, it was terrible. And I usually try to put a positive spin on these things.

- The safe assumption is that any prospective director or producer who may be watching your reel will see everything s/he needs to see in the first :30. That first :30 is your excruciatingly long (and not very polished) title sequence. Ditch it. Go straight into the best of your best footage, with perhaps a title card (minimal animation) that lasts no longer than 5 seconds.

- The graphics you use are suited for public access cable. Not very attractive for a professional reel.

- Much of the footage was quite over/underexposed, grainy, or plagued with bad lighting. Pick your absolute best and put that up front. Weed the rest out.

- Lots of the shots repeated, not necessarily with the same exact clips but with the same scenes. You made a reel well over 3 minutes when it could have been less than half that, and it would have been more effective.

- Fix aspect ratios. The Vimeo upload is flagged as HD, even though in your description you say it's SD. And it's 16:9, yet there are some letterboxed 16:9 clips that are stretched to fit the true 16:9 frame, including the titles (which are thus difficult to read). It just looks unprofessional. You should be able to maintain proper aspect ratios... failure to do so can be a deterrent for potential employers. As a side note, with the basic (free) Vimeo account, you can upload one HD video per week.

- Avoid excuses in your video description. Telling viewers "the original was x, but now it's y because of z" shows lack of confidence. If you're going to put a reel out there, put it out there for what it is and let it do the talking. In fact, forgetting a written description altogether may be better, or simply describing it as "Andrew Wolf 2011 Demo Reel" would suffice.

- Labeling yourself and your reel as "totally awesome" can get in your way. It may have been a cool/funny idea to you and your friends in high school and college, but in the real world it comes across as amateur.

- Covering a "jack of all trades" reel is also a road block. Prospective employers don't want to have to wade through three or four different skill sets to find what they want. Focus on your camera work. Further, the "scriptwriting" section was all but pointless as little lines of dialog here and there say nothing of your overall writing abilities. Plus, the dialog all comes from the right channel, which is not good.

So, trim it down and ditch the graphics. Wrangle in your letterboxed clips where needed, and use only the footage you absolutely need to show.
Click to expand...


+1

and please don't call it totally awesome, let people tell it.
 
cooool. Thanks you dudes. I shortened it down to 2 minutes, took out the intro, and only kept my editing with the camera work; the most important stuff. Vimeo did say to upload it as H.264 with 1280x720 compression soooo I uploaded it again. I'll still keep my Acting reel the same I guess. The Film reel is what's important the most I guess.
 
TotallyWolf1987 said:
Vimeo did say to upload it as H.264 with 1280x720 compression soooo I uploaded it again.
Click to expand...

Right. That's still HD for Internet. Compressing to h.264 is not what determines HD... it's the frame size that matters, and 1280x720 is one flavor of HD.

TotallyWolf1987 said:
I'll still keep my Acting reel the same I guess. The Film reel is what's important the most I guess.
Click to expand...

The same advice applies. The graphics are bad, and the opening titles hard to read as they are "squashed" a bit. Labeling it as "totally awesome" is way too presumptuous, and it's really up to the viewer to decide that (besides, if you call it "totally awesome" it had better deliver... and it doesn't). The shot at :22 is a really weak spot, since it appears that you flubbed your line.

As a side-note, there are way too many clips in there where you seem to be off-mic (your female co-host, first shot at :15, is wearing a lav but your audio is way off-axis... no mic? Camera mic?). There are a few others where it appears there was no decent audio support during production. This may or may not be a concern for your acting reel, but as you move forward you'll definitely want to replace those.

The other thing about acting reels is the old adage of KISS: "Keep It Simple, Stupid." Acting reels need to highlight, well, acting. Fast-paced editing, flashy graphics, and background music may work for shooting or editing reels, but for acting they distract from the focus. A string of your best scenes, with contact information on a title card, is your best bet. If you're going to go graphics-heavy, you'd better be able to deliver top-notch graphic design and not 1980s "Star Search" bumpers.

And again, avoid excuses. You bill this in your unnecessary description as clips from student films. Avoid that term. Like with the cinematography reel, let the video speak for itself.

Here are a few examples I found on Vimeo that run the gamut, but take note of how simple can work. Also, note the lack of descriptions on the video pages:

http://vimeo.com/8478671
http://vimeo.com/17773066 (great content, though clips run a little long)
http://vimeo.com/11150428
http://vimeo.com/4666888
http://vimeo.com/15142605 (good reel design, but not the best choice of clips)
http://vimeo.com/8961532
 
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Does it matter what was used for editing? The reel needs to show SKILL, not what NLE was used. Or are you asking because this is posted in the FCP forum?

Anyone can cut a Montage. That's the first eye candy that you show, but then you need to show full scenes. If you are showing off directing/editing skills. Only DPs and camera people, costume designers, set decorators, production designers have reels that are ONLY montages. You need full scenes. To show people what you do. A sample of your work. A small plate, not a bite.
 
Shane nailed it on the head. And, let's get real here, showing an "editing" reel that shows two clips cut together in the most basic way isn't much of an editing reel, now is it? Even little kids can cut video together now with the basic tools that come bundled with newer OSes.

Plus, an "editing" reel is hindered by the fact that if you're doing good editing, it's totally not even noticeable. That's the goal.
 
The 70's and 80's were a lot more sophisticated in reality than those graphics used as an homage harking back to those days. Have a friend at the art institute who is better at graphics do that work.

Few people are a jack of all trades. The ones who are have an innate balance of art, tech skills and more that they acquired on their own. No school can really give that.

So it's best to pick one thing and master it rather than be mediocre at too many things.

My perspective on anything highly successful in the commercial art world, the final product was inside someone's head, the nuances, the quality, the execution and outcome all existed in excellence before anything was started. That's the true essence of creation. Visionaries exist in all fields and at various levels. But seeing something in your mind acts as a great path of guidance. Slapping stuff together with tools that everyone has access to accounts for little. It must start in your head. It's all too easy to see when that is just not the case, this reel being one.
 
umm well like I think at this point I'll just create a reel for each; Editing, Camerawork, and whatever. Maybe they way it'll land me a job here in the Philly/NJ/NYC areas and stuff. Thx for all the feedback by the way.....
 
Shane Ross said:
Does it matter what was used for editing? The reel needs to show SKILL, not what NLE was used. Or are you asking because this is posted in the FCP forum?
Click to expand...

I'm asking because this is the Final Cut Pro forum, and the OP has yet to indicate that it was edited in FCP.

On that basis, the thread is closed.
 
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