Playing around with my Acting Demo Reel.

[Doc Bernard]

Decided to see what I could do with the footage I have and a few programs (FCS, Motion, ComicLife, and PS CS4).

I am think of dropping this format into a "story", to help give some context to the reel.

What do y'all think so far????

I have more footage on the way, plus I am going to shoot some more myself.

 

[ryan brown]

Hmmmm... Well, first off, I'm assuming you're after constructive criticism, so that's what I'll give:

The entire piece needs work (in my opinion). Some of the idea's MAY be workable, but it needs to be modernized. The comic theme could work, but as it sits, it's too slow paced, and there's not enough motion. We stay on the pics too long, and then when we do go in for a clip, it's short and a couple of them (the elevator gun loading clip; the "reality show" clip) don't seem to add anything at all. The opening font color needs to be changed, or at least add a drop shadow to make it pop. The "Let's not mess around"... "Who do you want to kill me" I don't even understand. And if I did, it'd still come off as cheesy. I'd say lose it. The end "credits" could use an updated font, and personally I'd lose the crawl. A simple transition in with a cleaner, more pro looking font would suffice. Maybe feather the edge's of that pic of yourself behind the font, and have to rows of your credits continuing outside the frame of the picture (the entire frame with two rows of fonts.

All in all, it could be a good start, but there's a lot of work to be done to make it pro.

Much faster paced throughout, particularly with the comic book parts, add some more motion to the zooming in/out of the clips, exchange some of the weaker clips, change out fonts, lose the cheese factor text, and work on the end credits. That should help polish it up a bit. Just my opinion here, so take it as you will.

cheers

 

[Doc Bernard]

Actually, for a real reel (see what I did there???) I am going to hire a real editor, not a hack like me. I was just "expanding my envelope", so to speak. Seeing just what was possible with my current rig.

But.....LOL, based on what I did with this, my company is going to have me cut a promo video for distribution. And I got a paid acting gig already from it. (All in three days of it being up)

But, Ryan you make some good points. The "cheese" you mention, has a story behind it. Every film I have been on, save 1 or 2, I get killed. It's a running theme for my acting career. If I wasn't so emotionally strong, I might have developed a complex because of it. LOL!!!!!!

Yeah.....text just is not my strong suit. I have over 1000 fonts, but never pick the right one.