Revised Demo Reel

Very nicely done. :thumbsup: It's always difficult looking at something over the web and then commenting on it. This is not meant to be a criticism - there appears to be a 1 frame (bad edit), a picture of blue plastic boxes between a woman speaking and the bulldozer at the dump. :undecided I thought it was odd that you had all of this great footage then suddenly there's a shot of a conveyer, after looking at it closer I noticed the person falling, even though that's a cool shot its a little distracting. If you love it and want to leave it in I would suggest slowing it down a bit so that the viewer can comprehend what it is. Also, the shot immediately following where the dirt hits the ground doesn't work for me. It looks like you shot a small pile of dirt close up to make it appear large. In order to sell that effect I think you need give it some mass, slow it down and comp in a little dust to add weight to the dirt. Finally, I agree with the previous comment regarding color correction. To me your demo looks like it could have all been film. But there were a couple of instances where I knew something was different. Not necessarily video vs. film, just different and I think that can be resolved by balancing out your color correction from scene to scene.

Great use of music and editing, it is very impressive. :engel017:

Regarding the wedding photography, I would leave it in too. Sure they're not the same "style," but first of all they are compossed very well and it show me [the producer] that you probably work well under preasure and do an equally good job on lower budget productions as you do on loarger ones. :cheesy:
 
Hey, thanks for the new comments guys! Appreciate it.

You know what though, I'm going to be taking out some of those "dump" shots soon. I'm in the middle of shooting a music video with a fellow DVXmember, Chayse Irvin, and we mounted a jib-arm ontop of a pick-up truck and loaded my remote head on the end of it filming low-riders bouncing up and down!! The camera twists like 180" as it starts from the hood of the low-rider and rotates as the jib is panned/boomed up slightly so that it swirels around the convertible with the 4 rapper guys in it! It's pretty crazy!!! We're both shooting 24p and I'm shooting the 16mm (Arri SR2) portion of the music video. It's been alot of fun...yesterday was day 1 and we're moving on to day 2 of 3 now!

Next week I'm shooting a Mini35 short film so I'll be replacing some of my current demo reel stuff with the two new projects...and in Sept I have 2 Mini35 films and 1 Guerilla35 film so I'll be using footage from those as well. I'm excited :)

Thanks,

Norm
 
Very cool, Norm. If I have any crit' it's basically a repeat of everything that's already been said. A solution though may be to have 2 demo reels.
I use to help (back in the day) do miniature effects photgraphy in the movie industry.
A lot of the guys coming in looking for work would do this with their reels.
Sometimes the sequencing of images of wildly different subject matters is not necessarily aesthetically jarring but mentally jarring. In other words seeing a very cool cinematic piece up next to cheerleaders cheering or a wedding makes it stumble thematically.
In my line of work I also sometimes have the opportunity to look at the demo reels of guys who do CGI (not the same thing as film, but...) work and they basically split up their reel if it's for animation, gaming or live action instead of bunching it together.
Sometimes on a separate reel, sometimes it is compartmentalized within the reel itself.
Hope this helps.
 
Norm - very impressive stuff - and is there a more cinematic shot than the use of the jib? God I love that stuff! I think that really ups the visual impact of the reel. I would cut the wedding shot, except that it looks so good and I agree with the fact that it speaks volumes about your range and the quality of footage you can get under pressure - and that would work to your favor in regards to a producer. Good luck with the coming shoots and post when you get the chance!
 
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