Showreel

 

A showreel is a short video reel  showing a your best work and projects you may have worked on. Showreels are mostly used by creatives in order to show clients a quick burst of their work. It allows the client to get a feel of the person's style of work. 

It can also show past edits. For example, a creative could use their showreel to show past transitions and color grades in order to assist their client into making a more informed decision on the final piece. Communication is key in the creative industry, therefore being able to show a client as much information as possible will help the shoot and edit run more seamlessly. 

My showreel will be used to show my past work, however showreels are also used by actors, animators, musicians, editors, and models. They are usually between 2 to 3 minutes long. 

The best showreels contain the widest amount of work that a person has completed. For example, when coming to creating my showreel I am going to include my photography and videography. Inside of that I will show all of the genres of my photography and different video projects I have worked on.

I have no idea what to do for my showreel, even though I know what it will consist of. I need to understand what the music, pace, length and content is appropriate. 

The showreel shown above is an example I really like and wish to take some inspiration from. Niklas Christl's showreel is a collection of all the content he has created in 2020. He has collected all of that footage and narrowed it all down to 1 minute and 26 seconds. To think a year of content has been taken into a minuet and a half is hard to understand. However after watching his reel, it is obvious why it is short. His showreel had fast paced music, resulting in faster cuts between footage. There is a positive and a negative to this choice however.

Fast paced music means for footage can be shown within an amount of time. Upbeat fast music results in making the audience also feel upbeat. This could make the audience feel motivated to use him to create such videos for themselves. Seeing such beautiful work flashed before your eyes also makes the audience feel jealous that they do not have such work for themselves. However, fast paced music means that the audience can truly soak in the quality of work. Fast paced music means we do not see much of each project. Therefore we cannot see if his storytelling is well put together. Yes, he might have great shots, but do they make sense?

He did not use a slower paced tranquil music, however there is also a positive and negative to that choice. For example, if you are wishing do display your landscape photography or your luxury car videography, you might choose slower paced music. This would allow the audience to fully take in and study the details within your work. Contradictory, slow paced music could bore the audience if you're filming action. 

Another great thing about fast music, is that it can mask your mistakes within work. Letting a clip drag out and play fully, allows the audience to see how you messed up the exposure or the stabilization etc. Therefore, faster paced music means that the audience have a lesser chance of observing your mistakes. 

After my analysis of music choice, I believe that I will attempt to use fast paced music for my videos but show my photography on slower paced music. This will give the best of both worlds due to the fact that the audience can absorb my images and also get a flavour of my video projects. Photos will work as my attention to detail and the videos will serve as my 'style' and 'look'.

Carrying on with the sense of music Jacques Crafford's showreel demonstrates my thoughts perfectly. His landscape shots are shown within the slow stages of his reel and then as the music climaxes, he shifts into sports, lions and driving shots. His action matches with the music. This is something I wish to incorporate into my showreel.

Taking this initial idea of music and how I think I could use it, I am going to make a first draft of a showreel.

Above is my first draft of my showreel. I used ghost by marvin brooks and 2wei for my music and I got the music as a free download on their website. I would need to buy a license in order to use this music on my final showreel. However I decided to use this music on my draft as I fell in love with the track and it helped me brainstorm further on what music I can use and what I need to look for. 

As stated earlier, I made sure to start off with slower paced music for my photography and then use the faster paced music for my video work. Overall I believe it was a great first draft. It has assisted me and gave me a greater understanding of what I want my showreel to feel like.

Although I love the music, I believe for the work that I am displaying, it is best suited for an action sequence and not my showreel. Therefore, I am going to use epidemic sound in order to find the perfect mix of an upbeat track with slow and fast paced parts.

Once I found the music I wanted, I began to create my showreel. When it came to creating my showreel, there was not much skill involved. However the only struggle I had was locating all of my media. I spent possibly hours trying to find appropriate material. Once I had the material, it was only of matter of cutting everything to the beat.

Within my showreel, I have kept all my genres as collected as possible. For example, all of my product photos are shown together and all of my landscape images are shown together. 

I was successful in keeping the videos with the fast music and the images with the slow music. Below is a screenshot of my timeline. Normally I would color grade my work to be the same, however I want the audience to be able to differentiate between each clip, therefore I left them as they were.

 

Just like with my CV, personal statement, logo and business cards, I must check with peers to see if they would change anything about my showreel. It is my work and I could be "big headed" looking at the work. Therefore having others check my work will make sure that others will see my work for how I want it to be seen.

Although one person thought that the portrait images took away from the continuity of my showreel, I believe that having that minor issue is worth it, considering the quality of the work itself. However I will change the logo to be white on a black background.  I agree with the persons feedback and think it makes the video more streamline and have a less abrupt ending. Instead of going from white to black, it looks as if the text just disappeared, which is better.

In order to make the ending more interesting I decided to use a black color layer and mask it over the 'media production' of my logo. Then, in time with the beat, it disappears and makes the extra text visible. This little touch adds extra flare into the ending and keeps the audience interested till the very end.