I am in the process of creating a new showreel and over the last two months I have received some good advice on what I should put in.
When I attended an industry talk at Cardiff Animation Festival, Kristjan Zadziuk was listing some tips for a good showreel that I’m taking into consideration for the edit:
- Include only your best work: I always try to be as selective as I can but I would definitely ask people around me for a second opinion, particularly in recognising shot diversity.
- Best shot first, second best last: I think this is probably the hardest part for the edit. I am tempted to have two different lipsync shots so they don’t interrupt any music.
- Don’t hide your animation: this advice was specific for shots where graphics are presents. I have been advice to keep them to explain my role in a certain shots, but they need to be inconspicuous enough so they don’t cover the animation.
- Show your range: I had the problems in the past where a few recruiters were asking if I could draw/animate something that wasn’t an animal, as my showreel was lacking humans a bit. With shots from my graduation film, I will hopefully be able to have a more balanced showreel
- Cater your reel to specific employers: I had some contrast advice on this, but I understand that if I’m going for a specific project knowing what it will involve, it will be useful to have a specific edit for it.
- Make sure your work has appeal: I think this is another part that I might struggle to see by myself as I doubt my work a lot. I think I have shots which different styles which will hopefully show that I can adapt to different projects.
I might also have a separate showreel to apply for 2D assistant animators/ clean up roles role, as it might be easier to show that particular skill with a more specific showreel.
Regarding my website, I won’t be creating a new one from scratch as I have paid for a domain and storage up until September, when I will consider migrating to a different platform.
The things I want to include though are a section on character illustration. I previously had a page with the illustration I did for privates and for personal projects, but I would like to include some of the character sketches/ designs I did for my graduation project. They will also add a little bit more diversity to an illustration portfolio that is heavy on creature drawings at the moment
After a talk given by producer Cecilia Hay at university, I had the chance to show her my website/showreel/cv. She said they were really readable and only suggested that I should edit my cv and adding the projects I have worked on in the past two years.
I will also have some new business cards printing for the graduation show. My old ones have my website logo on them, which I will reprint at some point, but people looking at the exhibition might not associate that with my film. I thought of using a screenshot for the film that I can use as a back design. I have also had a discussion with my other team mates about having some stickers with marine creatures that we will offer as freebies at the exhibition.