Definition: A show reel, is the motion picture or video equivalent of an artist’s portfolio. It is typically used as a tool to promote the artist’s skill, talent, and experience in a selected field, such as acting, directing, cinematography, editing, special effects, animation, or video games and other graphics. The showreel is frequently submitted with a CV to a prospective employer. When a reel contains scenes from actual productions, a shot list or credit list may also be submitted to describe the artist’s specific involvement in each portion of the reel. While the usage of video excerpts on such showreels can be regarded as a breach of copyright, it is generally accepted in the film industry to do so, as it is the only tool of an artist to actually self-promote her/his work.
Before making my showreel, I decided to check out some other showreels online. As I want to be a camera operator, I searched on youtube for showreels made by camera operators.
As you can see, over thirty thousand results were found. This meant that I had a wide range of camera operator showreels to choose from. I decided to look at a showreel made by James Price:
I decided to look at this showreel as he says he specialises in documentary and factual work, something that I am interested in. I was interested to see that James had travelled the world filming different cultures and people. The showreel had good music, it went very well with the images he had shown. One bad thing however is that I found this showreel slightly too long. Towards the end of the 5 mins 36, I was beginning to lose concentration.
The second showreel I looked at was made by Chris Hammond, and again, it was a specialist camera operator showreel.
Although this showreel was good, I did not feel it was as professional looking as the James Price one. This showreel almost felt too candid, like a lot of the footage was just filmed with friends having a laugh, or at a family wedding. I also felt that the music on this showreel was not suited the the camera shots I was looking at.
From looking at these two showreels, I now know that my showreel should contain a variety of shots, showcasing many aspects of my work. I have a range of genres of which I have filmed, therefore I should show this in my showreel so that the employers looking at it will be able to see my skills.
Here are the two showreels I looked at in their entirety:
