8 Pro Showreel Tips To Take Your Career To The Next Level – Part 1

Whether you are starting out in the industry or are a more experienced artist looking for your next job, these helpful tips will give your application an edge.

1. Your showreel needs to be a short compilation of demo work showing employers the best of what you can do.

2. People often forget to include a title frame or end frame with their name, skill set, software knowledge and contact details so make sure that’s the first thing you work on before starting the rest!

3. Start with your best work – you should aim to catch people’s eyes in the first five seconds.

4. What follows should be creative and unique – make yourself stand out from the crowd.

5. Your best work is only as good as your worst, so only put the cream of the crop in there.

6. Music and soundtrack is not important, but it's your choice. If you do use it, keep it neutral/ambient. Metal/dubstep can be very distracting on a demo reel and can only hurt you. Most recruiters will either be listening to their own music when reviewing reels or will mute yours. Don't waste too much time thinking about it.

7. Try and make your reel have a focused, professional style. Reels that are unfocused or badly edited and put together confuse recruiters. A reel showing all sorts of modelling, lighting, FX and compositing, for example, shows you yourself don't really know where you fit in to the company. Even 'generalist' reels have some kind of focus to them. If you are just starting out in the industry, try to decide what you want to specialise in as early as possible and focus your reel towards that.

8. Similarly, make sure you target the reel to where you are applying. If you are applying for a studio known for their photoreal VFX work, then your cartoony stylised characters might not exactly be appropriate.

Want to read part 2 of our showreel tips article? Then click here!