site
stats

7 RULES TO LIVE BY WHEN MAKING YOUR DEMO REEL

By Marci Liroff

When I first started teaching actors about the business and how they can empower themselves, it was common to see demo reels that ran between 5-10 minutes long! Now it’s more common to see 30/60/90 second reels.

My, how times have changed! I imagine the next time I write about this topic it’ll have changed again. Can’t wait to see what’s next!
1. Here’s the skinny. Get your footage uploaded electronically so it can be easily viewed. Edit a demo reel which has clips from all your work woven together. Here’s the key and it’s one of the biggest mistakes I see actors make with their demo reels: Front-load your reel with your strongest footage. By ‘strongest’ I mean the footage that features YOU. If you’re in a scene with Will Smith but it’s really his scene and it barely features you, you’re gonna look like a background player and aren’t going to impress anyone. In fact, you’re going to get lost in that footage. Don’t use scenes where the other person is out-shining you in the scene.  You want the viewer to be riveted to YOU. Yes, I’m very impressed that you actually got cast in a scene opposite Will Smith – that is actually a big deal – but if you come off looking like an extra in the scene, I’m not gonna be so impressed. Unfortunately, when I play demos for producers/directors/and executives – they mostly have the attention span of a gnat – and will only watch the first few moments, unless you’ve really caught their attention – so make your opening great. Don’t go on and on in those photo montages with music in the background in your opening. If you’re going to do that, I suggest it be no longer than 7 seconds. Or better yet, do that montage at the end. Get to a great scene in the opening where you’re speaking. I’ve seen so many demos where I can’t even tell who I’m supposed to be watching because there are so many actors in the scene.
2. It’s quality, not quantity. At the very least, make sure it is of broadcast quality in both picture and sound. Don’t put poor quality footage on your reel – it only makes you look bad…really bad! With so many actors self-producing content these days for their reels, remember it has to look just as good as the footage we’re seeing on television and in the theaters. If the quality is “less than” it reflects on you. Have someone with an objective eye (not a family member or good friend) go through your reel to help you edit. Be discerning. Imagine you’re the buyer. You don’t need to put something on your reel just because you were in it. It’s got to be great footage. If it doesn’t show you in the best of light – don’t use it.  If it looks homemade (like so much of the self-produced content I see) don’t use it! I’d rather see no footage than bad footage. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube!
 
3. Use your best footage first and your newest footage at the top of the reel.  I suggest you do not go too far back into your repertoire – if you’re pushing 50, the scene when you were 20 will only confuse people and sorry honey, you’re not that guy anymore!
4. When you’re editing a demo reel, I suggest you do a separate comedy reel and a separate drama reel. If I’m casting a comedy, I want to view and show just your comedy footage and vice-versa. If we want to see your range, we can always view the other reel, but I find that most of the filmmakers I work with want to see *just* your comedy footage if we’re doing a comedy and don’t want to wade through all the drama footage on your reel.
I also really appreciate it when the clips are labeled at the top of the clip so that I know what show/movie this clip is from.
5. Some people are doing clips instead of demos. These are very useful as well. Each clip is it’s own self-contained clip that runs about 30-60 seconds. This way there’s a large variety of clips to choose from and I can pick and choose what I want to see (and send to my team). This seems to be the norm these days.
 
6. I suggest you upload your demo reel/clips to your profile page on Actors Access for easy viewing along with your resumé and photos. There’s also a great site called Cast It Talent you can subscribe to and upload pic/resume and reel/clips to your profile page and send that package to anyone who requests it.
You should also upload your reel/clips to your IMDb profile page. If you have a website, then of course your demo reel/clips are going to live there as well. If you’re going to upload your reel to a site like YouTube or Vimeo, please make sure you have your contact info easily viewable – either on the video itself or in the description below. Hell, you could post it in both places! These days, a lot of Casting Directors and comedy talent scouts are combing the web for new faces. You can’t imagine how many times I stumble across an actor’s video online and there’s absolutely NO contact info! Don’t forget to include your website, twitter name, and Facebook Page (if you have one) – this helps to market yourself across many different social media platforms.
 
7. Make it easy for people. I really don’t like receiving large files to my email from ‘You Send It’ when I’m working on a project. I just don’t have the time to download these files – remember, it’s not just your video file, it’s literally hundreds of them. You want to make it really easy for people to view your reel. Send an easily clickable link.

To read a version of this article on BackStage.com click here!

 
Do you have any questions for me? Feel free to ask them here!
Want more tips and general thoughts on life? Be sure to bookmark my blog and follow me here!
 
We welcome your comments and suggestions.
 
Glad you’re here!
Marci

What Everybody Should Know About Twitter’s Dirty Little Secret

By Marci Liroff
Oh, you’re gonna thank me for this one! If you’re a Twitter freak (read = addict!) like me and you don’t already know this, you’re gonna love this one.
When you use twitter usernames at the beginning of a tweet it will ONLY appear in the twitterfeed (of your followers) to that person you’re tweeting to AND all those that are following BOTH you. OK, read it again because this took me awhile to actually grok.
Example – if you tweet:
@marciliroff you are such a great social media teacher thnx SO much 4 2day!
The ONLY people (of your followers) that will see this tweet in their twitterfeed are ME and all the folks that are following BOTH you and me.
BUT – if you want ALL the people who are following you to see it (so that it helps ME – because social media is all about connectivity and helping promote thru tweets and this is a form of promotion; it also shows what a smart person you are by thanking someone publicly and letting your followers know that you are a good twitter citizen)….you’d tweet:
Thanks SO much @marciliroff 4 being such a great social media teacher! Loved our session 2day!
You can also say:
.@marciliroffyou are such a great social media teacher thnx SO much 4 2day!
If you put a “.” BEFORE the @username, everyone who is following you can see it.
Now, here’s the important part, if you and I were just goofing around back and forth and bantering – I’d reply to your initial tweet and put your name FIRST so that it wouldn’t end up clogging all my followers’ twitter feed with mundane crap. It drives me absolutely crazy to see people using Twitter like their email or IM and having a chat back and forth. If I’m following BOTH of them, I have to see their ENTIRE conversation which should be reserved for their personal space.
I see a lot of people lately, responding to people and RTing the original tweet with their comment first – thus we get to see every friggin’ thing that they’re responding to while they’re doing their “replying housekeeping”. Oh joy!
Example:
It was great! RT @JoeBlow so @MrRockStar how was your show?
Get it? Got it?! Good!
I’d love to hear your comments!
Glad you’re here!
Marci

A Quiet Night Watching the Tonys – or so I thought….!

By Marci Liroff
I was so excited last night to just park myself on the couch with a big bowl of pasta, a martini, and my iPad to watch this year’s Tony Awards. Yeah, I’ve become that person. I can’t just watch a TV show…I have to be connected to the net simultaneously.
Gosh I just love Neil Patrick Harris. I think he should host everything from now on! He’s so funny, loose, perfectly self-deprecating….and he sings! I was looking forward to catching up on all the plays I didn’t get to see in person because of a busy pilot season. A good casting director is always doing her homework!
Just as I start to get into the show I see a status update on Facebook from a friend saying that her dog is missing. My coaching client’s mother’s dog has gone missing in Texas. Yeah, a small French Bulldog in the heat of Texas in the Summer. Not good.  So what do I do? I take to the Twitter. I start tweeting the crap out of this to everyone I know and asking them to RT (re-tweet) my tweet. I know that I have about 7800 followers, but if I could get them to RT this tweet to all of their followers….well, you get the picture. We could get the word out instantly to TONS of people.
I have become a huge fan (read “addict”) of social media in the last few years. I used to think it was just people tweeting about what they ate today or where they are (I still hate Foursquare – why do I need to know where you’ve “checked into” at any given moment of the day?!). I’ve come to realize it’s SO much more. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogging) brings us that much closer to each other. It’s not about “me, me, me” in this world anymore. It’s about you and me and how we can help each other. I love how a very large community of strangers becomes a small community of friends, helping each other.
By the end of the evening, I had gotten so many people to re-tweet my original tweet about the lost dog. They included people who had only 12 followers (thank you), to people who have 32,360 followers – thank you Lacey Chabert! I was so touched that a big corporation like Back Stage Magazine with 21,535 followers who was very busy tweeting about the Tonys (remember…I was still parked on the couch trying to watch the Tonys) would break away from their job and tweet about a lost dog. Amazing support.  By the end of the night, my tweet had been seen by over 100,000 people worldwide! By morning, the dog had been found. Seems that my friend’s family in Texas plastered the city with homemade posters and the dog was found….only a few houses away. Phew! Moral of the story? Yay for social media and yay for good old-fashioned craftiness. One more thing?Please microchip your dogs! Even if they’re an “inside” dog and you think they never want to go outside and leave your side – there’s always a chance that your gardener will leave the gate open or they will somehow get out – and it’s usually without their collar on! Hell, I’d microchip kids if I could!!
You might think this was enough for one night, right? I could get back to watching the Tonys and see scenes from the play Once which I really wanted to see in person. But no, that would be too easy.
The emails started coming in around 8:52 PM PST with the heading “IMPASSE EMERGENCY!”
Stay tuned to Part 2 wherein I manage to cast the lead of my friend’s short film….from my bed!
Glad you’re here – Marci
« 1 2 3 4