What to Put in a Demo Reel

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Craig Scime from Clear Star Media dot com speaking on behalf of Expert Village and today we're talking about demo reels. We've talked a little bit about the purpose of demo reels in an earlier clip. Now we're talking about what it is you need to look for when you are looking when you are finding a demo reel editor. It sounds like a mouthful but it's very important. Obviously, somebody has to take all your clips, put them into a computer, cut it up and make it look really exciting for a casting director...maybe a coach, a manager, agent, whoever it is that your trying to appeal to. So what do you do? How do you find a demo reel editor? Well, the first thing you want to do is of course go to websites that are geared for what you specialize in. So if you're an actor, and that's primarily what we're going to be discussing today, if your an actor go to acting websites such as LA Casting. They offer a list of people who do demo reels. Now the next thing you want to do is you want to find out, for sure, if of course those demo reels websites have samples. That is probably one of the key ways to find if somebody is a good demo reel editor for you is by checking out their websites. At Clear Star Media we offer four different samples of some of the work that we've done so you can decide are we the right company to meet with. The other thing you want to do is make that phone call. Call them up. Ask them if they have edited acting demo reels before. Because certainly a sports demo reel, which is something we can do, is cut a little bit differently than an acting demo reel. So you want to make sure they specialize in the demo reel that you're looking to showcase. The other thing you want to do is find out what formats they can handle. Sometimes as actors you might have had tape on three quart inch or U-matic. Very old tape but maybe some of your best work is on there. So you want to make sure they can handle that. Of course, maybe you have it on eight millimeter. Those cassettes there. Hight 8. VHS, DVD, BETA. BETA is a very popular format. Many people remember those old BETA machines in the 80's and of course VHS won out. But in the production world, in the production industry, BETA is still very much used. So you might get a BETA tape, not know what to do with it but your best work is on there. Again, you need to find a demo reel editor who will handle that format. Of course there is many other formats, HD and all that other stuff. I don't think, personally, that your demo reel has to be in HD. Certainly the quality that you bring to your editor or you bring us could be in HD but the final version doesn't matter. It just matters that it looks good and you're able to give it to somebody and make it very professional. The other thing you want to do is lets say you not in a market like LA and you don?t have LA Casting to go to. Well, type in Google or Yahoo search "demo reel editors" or search "demo reels". Because obviously you can't go to the phone book and look up demo reel editors if you're in a small town or a town that's not big in production. So you could go also and look at companies who do video production or video editing in the phone book. Or you can certainly search that. Maybe you can type in " video editing" and then your town what ever it is in Yahoo or Google or like I said in the phone book, under those terms. From there you can go ahead and figure out exactly if that editor is what you are looking for. In the next segment we're going to talk about what to really look for in an editor to make sure they're offering the proper demo reel for you."