Tips on demoreels from sisgraph2007

[geldslaw]

Don’t make an employer work to see your work. Don’t expect the employer to go to a website to see what you do. Make it easy for them.

Do update your resume and demo reel every 6 months even if you don’t get hired. Many employers make a note of your progress and when you are at the point where your skillset matches their need, then they will call.

Minimize erotica, satanic and violent content. This limits your employment range and some companies just don’t want it.

Don’t include anything that doesn’t relate to the work you want to do. Do emphasize your strong points. Put those in the beginning. Start your demo reel with a hook that lets the employer see right away what it is that you do well.

Do keep your reel short. Your demo reel should be about a minute long. During a regular week, on average, an employer may receive 30 to 40 demo reels. During recruiting announcements, 300 and at SIGGRAPH, 3000-4000. So expect that an employer may fast forward and may give your reel all of 30 seconds. Why do they look? Why do they go to SIGGRAPH and put out the money and expense at job fairs? Because there may be a chance of finding that one, or two, or three gems of employees and artists that they are looking for.

Don’t expect any feedback, but if you do get a call with criticism, just listen. Don’t get angry. Learn from what they are saying.

Don’t send in WIP’s (works in progress). No shrink wrap on the demo reel, no email attachments (fear of viruses).

Do emphasize your strengths. Companies that are large are probably looking more for specialists. There are basically 5 categories: Lighting artists (the rarest and hardest to find), Modelers, Texturing artists, Animators and Compositors. Smaller companies tend to look more for generalists, or people who do well with more than one area.

Do take the time to study acting. Remember, the movie is about acting, not just about moving pixels around. Characters should have weight and not float about. Give them feeling. Tell a story. You should get some anatomy training and spend some time with the traditional fine arts as well. Animation concepts are more important than software knowledge.

Don’t worry too much about sound. Some companies will turn the sound down or off. However, if you have lipsynch, then do get the sound synched to the character.

Do consider starting out in an entry level position and working up. Maybe starting as a prop designer and later moving to character design.

If you are applying for a director job, have a good story line in your reel.

Your reputation is golden. What people say about you is worth more than what you can do. You may work on a team and later find that some of those team members are working for the company that you dreamed about. What that team member remembers about you can make it or break it. If you take a job, show up. If you can’t show or take another job, call, talk about it, but NEVER burn bridges.

"Nobody cares how old you are or what school you went to."

[BiOjOe]

Thats really good. Will help a lot of people