A lot of people talk a lot of advice on demo reels. Some good advice others not. I'm going to break it down really easy for you all. Every company in every industry has it, it's called the bottom line.
A company gets paid to DELIVER FINAL SHOTS. Thats what they do, thats how they make their money. They hire artist to do the work. They look for artist who can do as much of the work as possible, meaning do the most work with the least # of people (less overhead costs). Even if he/she is expensive if they can do more/faster work, better for the company. In other words, companies hire artists who they believe can FINAL SHOTS. Jr level demo reels are for artist who want to show they can final shots. If a reel doesn't show that, they don't get hired. A Jr guy who's 1/4-1/2 the price of a Sr guy needs to show they final 1/4-1/2 the number of shots a Sr guy can, simple as that. If your reel doesn't have one final looking shot, how can a company bet on you that you'll be able to final a shot later? Thats usually why Jr guys don't get hired. At LEAST ONE GOOD SHOT is a must. Forget about what software, think about what techniques you can do or show. Get one great shot. Finish that and still not have a job? Do another.
Some nice examples site (and yes most of them as 3dmax/fume guys) I have and am learning from their site design and am inspired by their fx shots. You don't need to do all this but get damn close if you can. Look at these for their tests and their shots. Don't worry about their tools. Think about what you know and what you can do, how can you show that? Bottom line :D
http://www.msalek.com/
http://www.pauljewell.com/
http://www.yeatvfx.com/works/works.html
http://www.brandonriza.com/3DVisualEffects/HTML/3DVisualEffects.htm
Lot of props to these guys for taking the time to get their work, show some of their process and getting it up online... that's a big pain in the ass, as most FX guys I know don't take the time to do that, me included.
3 comments:
Thanks for the plug Dave! And just when I was thinking about updating things
Paul J
Hey Dave,
I was trying to e-mail you rather than post here but I couldn't find your email address. I've been following your post for a while now and with your experience/credentials, I think you can point me in the right direction.
I've been doing "Motion Graphics" for about 10 years now for local TV networks and would like to evolve into high end commercial work. My question to you is, Do you think one should specialize in a certain discipline (i.e Character Animator, Dynamics,Modeler, etc) or the typical cliche learn as much as you can about everything to become the generalist guy?
Thanks in advance for your time..
answer is both. You should know how to do everything* Learn to do everything, and judge your skills along the way. What are you better at? What comes easier? Push harder on that, and specialize. So go general and then focus in. There are very few generalist out there. They tend to be made fx or lighters.
*except if you want to be an animator, or matte painter
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