In almost every industry a common feature is a portfolio. The film industry is no different, except that it is generally referred to as a demo reel. A demo reel highlights the experience you have and the type of work you want to be doing for others to see when they are considering you for their next project. With the release of our 2021 demo reel earlier this month we thought it would be fun to deconstruct the reel and look at the decisions we made in crafting it.

1. Length

The length of a film is always a major point of interest regardless of whether it’s the next Hollywood Blockbuster or a promo for the location ministry down the street. When it comes to demo reels it’s no different and so is the advice to cut, cut, cut. The tighter and shorter you can make your reel the more impact you will. Looking back, many of my early demo reels were anywhere from 1:45-2:30 long. When it comes to demo reels, if someone isn’t interested after watching 30-45 seconds of your reel, another 90 seconds isn’t going to change their mind. My 2020 reel was just a little over 1 minute and this year’s is under a minute. Besides not making your audience sit through a reel that is way too long, the shorter reel also forces you to use just the very best of your footage. Something that starts to get lost when you have outrageously long demo reels.

2. Music

If you ask me, music makes or breaks a demo reel. Not only do you want to find something new and unique but you need something that is going to match your brand and match the footage your editing to it. Nobody wants to listen to heavy metal music while scenic landscape shots pop up. In the past I’ve usually gone to stock music sites like PremiumBeat or AudioJungle to get music for my reels that’s going to sound good but not break the bank in licensing. This year though I was adventurous. An artist that creates music and then posts it on YouTube released a new song that I really liked. So I took the time to get in touch with them and license the song. Was it a little more pricey? Yes, but in the end you can hear the difference and that made it worth it.

Another aspect to consider with the music is once again the length. If you’re demo reel is on 50 seconds then you need to find a song of that length or find a song that you can edit down to a specific section. This is a lot easier said than done, even with the song I used this year. My advice is try to get a watermarked version that you can edit to until you know the piece will work at the length you need. No one wants to spend money on a song that they won’t end up using.

Listen to the full music track from my reel here: Listen Now

3. Sound Design

Sound Design is an interesting aspect to demo reels. The majority of people don’t include it, they just do music. On the surface I can understand why. It’s a lot more time consuming to do sound design for a demo reel as you’re not always able to just use the audio from the original project. This year was the first time that I did sound design in my project and yes it was a lot of work. I spent an extra week, and additional dollars, just on crafting the sound design. However I will say that it paid off in a big way. It’s hard for me to go back and watch the reel without sound design now. To prove my point check out the difference from the opening sequence of my reel with and without sound design.

Is sound design necessary? No, especially if your audience is business owners. However it can also make your reel stand out from the crowd and could be the thing that wins you the client.

4. Types of Shots

The final aspect of the reel ties back into the length issue and that is the type of shots. I’ve seen reels that spent an entire minute on nature shots before other types of shots and work they had done started to appear. That’s not going to help anyone except the nature lover. Having a shorter reel means you don’t have the time to repeat different types of shots. If you watch through my 2021 reel there are about 15-20 different types of shots features in less than a minute. These include the time of day, type of camera movement, type of industry etc. My goal is to not only show off my best work but also what I’m capable of. Sure the shot might not be the most exciting but if it highlights the amazing colors you can capture during golden hour that might attract a potential client. Below are five shots from my reel and what they are highlighting.

Grand Canyon shot showing experience with securing locations

I hope you’ve enjoyed a behind the scenes look at some of the choices I made in my latest demo reel. While there really are no hard and fast rules to making a demo reel these are things that I’ve seen have an impact and either learned from personal experience or from those farther along in their careers than me.

Have thoughts or questions about my 2021 demo reel? Drop them in the comments below. Or if you have any tips you’ve learned making demo reels I’d love to hear those too.

Deconstructing our Demo Reel