9 Pro Showreel Tips To Take Your Career To The Next Level – Part 2

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.

For part 1, click here!

1. Make sure that all information is clear. For each piece of work, list the software used and what you did. If you did happen to work on everything then list ‘all aspects’.

2. Consider making multiple reels (eg a modelling reel and an FX reel) if you want to keep your options open at this stage rather than combining them in to one.

3. Even if you're not looking to be a lighter/compositor you should still make some effort with rendering and presentation and produce work that looks attractive to review. This is all about producing good looking images at the end of the day, even if you're aiming at earlier stages of the pipeline eg modelling or layout.

4. The length should be kept to about 1 minute long but the shorter the better really. 30 - 45 seconds of high quality work is better than 2 minutes of average work, don't just pad it out to fit in with what you think others are doing.

5. Upload your reel to Vimeo (the industry standard) with an optional password if you prefer (for more senior level work from studios containing copywrited material, this is standard practice so that it doesn't get taken down). YouTube's compression isn't the best, and generally YouTube is seen as a slightly unprofessional way to present yourself to employers.

6. As well as your reel, post interesting R&D tests, playblasts and (good quality) WIPs to your Vimeo account. Employers are often just as interested in seeing your WIP work to see how you approach things as well as your completed work.

7. Show colleagues, friends and family your reel and be open to feedback. They can help provide you with fresh eyes, and your reel will likely need a few edits and improvements before it's really ready to present to employers.

8. The bottom line is as an entry level artist your reel has to be able to demonstrate to a recruiter that you can come in, sit down and produce usable shot assets as part of a larger team and project pipeline. Focus your reel on demonstrating this rather than trying to make complete, advanced looking fully polished shots all by yourself.

9. Last advice is if in doubt, leave it out - one bad shot on your reel could derail the other good quality work and put doubt in a recruiter’s mind.

Hopefully these 17 tips will help you on your way to making your best showreels yet!