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Our Actor's Showreel Services

Must Have Tips & Hints

The following Tips & Hints cover the must-haves for sending your own footage for me to edit, and reasons why up-to-date Showreels are important for actors.

If you are sending us your own footage to edit, here are a few Must-Have's.

  • Clips have to be of high video quality.

  • Footage has to be taken from at least semi-professional productions (no homemade stuff).

  • Preferably at least TWO different scenes

  • No more than FIVE different scenes.

  • Video has to be colour corrected and sound perfectly synchronised.

  • No menus, special effects or other fancy stuff should be included in the video.

  • It’s YOUR performance that has to shine in the video, not somebody else’s.

  • Variety and acting range is highly valuable (but only if everything else doesn’t suffer).

  • No unnecessary comments, pictures, text in the beginning (go straight to the point).

  • Your very best scenes should be in the beginning.

  • The whole reel should not be longer than 3 minutes.

That last point cannot be stressed enough. Talent agents and casting directors are busy people. They see tens, and sometimes hundreds of actors in one day. There’s no time for them to sit through long demo reels.

 

Chances are they won’t even sit through the whole 3 minutes. It’s likely the decision whether you’re right for the part or not is going to be made in the first minute or even 30 seconds, that is why your absolute best material has to come up first.

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Now you might think: “If they don’t want to watch the rest of the 3 minutes, they don’t have to.” That’s true, but maintaining a professional image in this business is more important than you might think. They don’t have to watch it, but they will see how long it is. 10 minutes of footage screams “amateur!”

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You only have ONE chance to make a great impression on that producer or promoter who agreed to take a quick look at your demo showreel. You need to make it count, get the emotional response. You have to make sure that this very short commercial is going to sell you as a talented and professional actor, band or performer.

 

Why Up-To-Date Showreels are Important.

  • As with keeping an up-to-date headshot is important it's just as important to keep your showreel up-dated.

  • Remember, you change over time, not just physically, your acting and performance changes as you improve and mature.

  • As you accumulate footage of your newer performances it's good to add that to your showreel; get rid of the older stuff as casting directors want to see your latest performance, not your older stuff.

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