how to make a killer demo real take one
if you're a shreditor a shooter editor producer or somebody in film and video
that wears multiple hats on production creating a demo reel that showcases all
of your best work can be super challenging so in this video I have some
tips and suggestions that will help you make a killer demo reel so you can land
at your next job make your real specific to the job do some research go to the
Job Description figure out what sort of videos are they looking for and try to
include some of your passwords that match the videos that they're looking
for because ultimately they want to see if you have the talents to produce the
videos that they already have on their website always introduce yourself I love
it when demo reels have your name pop up in some sort of creative way and have
like your different titles come up whether it's editor cinematographer etc
so introduce yourself is important to have your name there maybe even include
yourself a photo or you in action editing or shooting include yourself
there's nothing wrong with that
pick unique music choose a track that represents you, you want to sort of
showcase yourself creatively but your music choice is really important once
you pick your tracks edit your footage to the beat of the music don't include
the original scene pay scene okay you want to dig up the original files you
want to make it unique to the music that you chose and you want to showcase that
you can edit especially if you're an editor to the beats of the music and put
together the different scenes creatively
show the best part never show an entire sequence or seeing that you've edited
just showcase those well moments that you can transition in between you can
even cut back to the same video multiple times throughout the 60 seconds or two
minutes of your reel depending on how long it is there's this really great
motion reel which I've linked to in the bottom by Victor Silva and he did this
really well so take a look at that and you can see what I mean
if you can just make your demo real 60 seconds it's really rare that people
even watch beyond 30 seconds so you really have to grab them in that first
15 seconds of the video showcase your best work in that first 15
seconds or at least the work you know that they're looking for so try to make
it short if you can also a great tip is including a shot break down in the
description so you're going to include time codes you can include the project
name in what role you played and what sort of effects that you use this is
great because you want the employer to know what roles you played and what type
of projects you worked on you can even include the client that you worked on it
for and if you can't do a breakdown it's always nice especially for the shooter
editor producer roles if you include a title in the actual video itself
detailing what role you played so if you have some lower third coming you can say
editor on this project that's a great tip you never want your employer
questioning what role you played in that video
another tip I have is dividing up your demo reel into different themes or
categories so you can structure the demo reel based on different roles that you
played so if you want to say editing and then have a bunch of cuts of your
editing work and then cinematography and showcase shots of your cinematography
directing and so on so that's a nice way to stay organized
that way you can also do it by general you can do documentaries you can do
stop-motion animation motion graphics that's a great way to sort of organize
that so the employer can sort of be guided into your work through the
structure another way to do it is if you're just an editor and you've worked
on let's say a lot of car commercials or a lot of hair commercials you can sort
of divided up by theme and I've linked to a demo reel that does this really
well so you can sort of get the idea of what I'm talking about
and lastly just be you and be creative my good friend Ryan Turner he's a
director in LA we went to film school together at UC Santa Barbara he has done
a lot of comedies a lot of comedy directing writing and he did this
directors bio reel where he basically scripted this reel about how he
basically sees directing as a life style and how it sort of affects his personal
life this is actually quite funny so I've included a link in you should
definitely check it out it's very creative and ultimately the employer
wants to make sure that you're a good fit personality wise because you may
have the skill sets in your demo reel but if you don't have the personality
that they're looking for then you may not get the job so try to showcase your
creativity as much as you can so those are all the suggestions that I have I
hope that you guys find it useful when you start integrating them into your
demo reels and I'm positive that you will get employed very soon so I make
new video production tutorials every week if you go to PremiereGal.com/tutorials
you can leave requests there I will see you guys very soon bye