Alright, you guys know that a demo reel is one of the most important marketing tools you’re going to have as an actor when you are building your resume, when you are building your credits and when you are trying to get in the door. It’s one of the smartest most effective marketing tools that your agent or your manager can use to pitch you and to convince the casting director to take a chance on you in getting you into the room...
What’s the ideal length of a reel?
A 2-3 minute demo reel is fine.
How long should be clips be?
Clips for a demo reel should be anywhere from 15-30 seconds, and then you move onto the next clip. Just go to the most important part of that scene, you only want to feature the most important part of that scene and then you want to get on with it. If you can have a speedreel version of your demo reel, that’ll be very helpful to your representation.
What’s a speedreel?
You have your larger demo reel, and then you just take the most essential snippets from each of those scenes put them together in about a 60-second overall “speedreel.”
Now…there’s something about demo reels that needs to be addressed…seriously…and I’m gonna rant about it…ok here it is…
The MONTAGE (sigh).
Nobody in casting cares about the montage - they don’t wanna see the montage - NOBODY cares about the montage!
The only person who cares about the montage is you and whoever put the demo reel together for you and said, “Ooh, this would look really cool at the beginning of it!” For those of you who may not know, a montage a series of quick little images of you that you splice together and set to music, and it opens up at the beginning of your demo reel and we see all of that before we actually see the scenes that those images are taken from (to see an example, watch this video). If anything the montage is just annoying, because when you work in casting time is of the essence and you don’t have enough of it ever! And this is one of those things that as an actor I didn’t realize until I worked in casting. I would get off the phone with an agent who had just pitched their client and I'd said, “Sure send over the demo reel I’ll take a look at it.” I’d open up the demo reel file and see a montage? First thing I’m gonna do is go, “Ugh!” and then I’m gonna try to skip to the end of the montage, which is going to be a bit time consuming because I don’t know where the montage ends if this is the first time I’m seeing it, I don’t know where the actual scenes are going to start so I’m going to have to hit the fast-forward button to find it. Either that, or while the montage is playing, I’m gonna get up and go refill my coffee! The only thing that casting cares about is the scenes themselves – they wanna go straight to the meat. If you must have that montage on your demo reel, put it on the end. Make it like an afterthought, or a closing kind-of-thing.
What if I don’t have any footage?
Obviously if you’re an actor just starting out, it’s likely that you won’t have any footage to draw from, and you don’t want to put together a demo reel with just your stage performances where the camera’s way in the back of the theatre and everything’s shot on a wide master and we can’t see what’s going on here [your face, your expressions up close]. There are companies out there that you can hire to write, shoot, edit, and put together a fantastic demo reel for you. Now, I have some strong advice regarding these companies because there are a lot of them out there and you want to be very wise with the type of company that you hire.
It should not cost you an arm & a leg to put together a great demo reel. It should not cost you multiple thousands of dollars. If it’s costing you multiple thousands of dollars, you might want to rethink who you’re hiring!
Now for those of you who are based in Los Angeles, there is a company here in town that I’ve recommended to my students and coaching clients over the years and I think they do a fantastic job covering all of the elements I just mentioned, and for the high level of quality and comprehensive services that they offer, I feel their prices are more than fair. Now (I gotta say it!) this video/vlog is not being sponsored by Relentless Filmworks, nor do I get any kind of kickback for recommending them. I just happen to really like these guys and think they do good work. They also offer a free consultation which is nice, and they generously agreed to offer a 10% discount to my viewers – all you gotta do is be a subscriber to this channel and leave a comment at the end of this video. I will leave a link with more information and a discount code in the description box for you.
So that’s my advice when it comes to demo reels – and bear in mind it is simply my professional advice, take it or leave it – always when it comes to professional decisions, be sure to seek wise counsel from a number of legitimate resources.
Good luck! 👍
A 2-3 minute demo reel is fine.
How long should be clips be?
Clips for a demo reel should be anywhere from 15-30 seconds, and then you move onto the next clip. Just go to the most important part of that scene, you only want to feature the most important part of that scene and then you want to get on with it. If you can have a speedreel version of your demo reel, that’ll be very helpful to your representation.
What’s a speedreel?
You have your larger demo reel, and then you just take the most essential snippets from each of those scenes put them together in about a 60-second overall “speedreel.”
Now…there’s something about demo reels that needs to be addressed…seriously…and I’m gonna rant about it…ok here it is…
The MONTAGE (sigh).
Nobody in casting cares about the montage - they don’t wanna see the montage - NOBODY cares about the montage!
The only person who cares about the montage is you and whoever put the demo reel together for you and said, “Ooh, this would look really cool at the beginning of it!” For those of you who may not know, a montage a series of quick little images of you that you splice together and set to music, and it opens up at the beginning of your demo reel and we see all of that before we actually see the scenes that those images are taken from (to see an example, watch this video). If anything the montage is just annoying, because when you work in casting time is of the essence and you don’t have enough of it ever! And this is one of those things that as an actor I didn’t realize until I worked in casting. I would get off the phone with an agent who had just pitched their client and I'd said, “Sure send over the demo reel I’ll take a look at it.” I’d open up the demo reel file and see a montage? First thing I’m gonna do is go, “Ugh!” and then I’m gonna try to skip to the end of the montage, which is going to be a bit time consuming because I don’t know where the montage ends if this is the first time I’m seeing it, I don’t know where the actual scenes are going to start so I’m going to have to hit the fast-forward button to find it. Either that, or while the montage is playing, I’m gonna get up and go refill my coffee! The only thing that casting cares about is the scenes themselves – they wanna go straight to the meat. If you must have that montage on your demo reel, put it on the end. Make it like an afterthought, or a closing kind-of-thing.
What if I don’t have any footage?
Obviously if you’re an actor just starting out, it’s likely that you won’t have any footage to draw from, and you don’t want to put together a demo reel with just your stage performances where the camera’s way in the back of the theatre and everything’s shot on a wide master and we can’t see what’s going on here [your face, your expressions up close]. There are companies out there that you can hire to write, shoot, edit, and put together a fantastic demo reel for you. Now, I have some strong advice regarding these companies because there are a lot of them out there and you want to be very wise with the type of company that you hire.
- High Production Value. Make sure the company you hire shoots on a high quality high-def camera, and that their sound quality is top notch. Ask to see samples. Also, make sure they know what they’re doing when it comes to editing.
- Don’t go solo, have a scene partner. Make sure that you are in the scene with another very strong actor. This is very important because of the next point listed here.
- The scene should look like a film clip from an independent film that you shot. It should not look like you hired a company to put together a demo reel for you and I can tell you that having worked in casting, you see a lot of these type of “made at home” demo reels, and if the scene that you are shooting only features your character and is shot the entire time over the shoulder of another human being, that is one of the most obvious signs that you hired a demo reel company to put together your demo reel for you.
It should not cost you an arm & a leg to put together a great demo reel. It should not cost you multiple thousands of dollars. If it’s costing you multiple thousands of dollars, you might want to rethink who you’re hiring!
Now for those of you who are based in Los Angeles, there is a company here in town that I’ve recommended to my students and coaching clients over the years and I think they do a fantastic job covering all of the elements I just mentioned, and for the high level of quality and comprehensive services that they offer, I feel their prices are more than fair. Now (I gotta say it!) this video/vlog is not being sponsored by Relentless Filmworks, nor do I get any kind of kickback for recommending them. I just happen to really like these guys and think they do good work. They also offer a free consultation which is nice, and they generously agreed to offer a 10% discount to my viewers – all you gotta do is be a subscriber to this channel and leave a comment at the end of this video. I will leave a link with more information and a discount code in the description box for you.
So that’s my advice when it comes to demo reels – and bear in mind it is simply my professional advice, take it or leave it – always when it comes to professional decisions, be sure to seek wise counsel from a number of legitimate resources.
Good luck! 👍