I mean now…

Fantastic!

We had a lot to consider when it came to revamping our reel.  After all, a demo reel should say a lot about who you are as a company.  We thought about…

WHICH PROJECTS WE WANT TO SHOWCASE

This would prove to be more challenging than one might think.  You might think, “well why not just use a little bit of everything?”  Under ordinary circumstances we might.  But we’re not ordinary.  Our approach was to be more selective, while still highlighting the breadth of projects we had completed.  This can be tricky when have a variety of projects and industries from which to choose.  It helped that we have a dedicated hard drive for final exports of all our projects.  Using this made the organization process so much simpler.  When it was all said and done, some projects that had been in the older demo reel were left on the cutting room floor, for no reason other than we just didn’t have the time to show them all.

WHAT ABOUT THE FORMAT?

Our previous demo reel was very much a “sizzle” reel; that is to say it used quick cuts and fast music to convey a thrilling sense of excitement.  While this approach is certainly effective, we wanted to take our new reel in a different direction.  We looked at some of the more recent projects we had done and we found that many of them were more dramatic and carried a more serious undertone.  We knew we wanted our reel to be exciting, but at the same time reflect some of the themes we had recently addressed.  So we grabbed audio bites from different projects and used them to drive the video.  In effect, it tells a story.

TECHNIQUE / STYLE

Looking back at some of our more recent projects, we noticed that they had become more and more stylized; our special effects had become more complex; our color grading had become more emphasized.  We had also been shooting with the Sony FS700 so we had added slow motion footage to our repertoire.  Again, this was something we wanted our demo reel to showcase.  It was particularly fun working with the slow motion footage from the FS700 from projects like the Maryland Baseball – Are You Ready promo, and Five/Five, the latest documentary from Chris “J.J” Jurchak, our Digital Art Director. (We call him “J.J” because of his love of lens flares).  Speed ramping slow motion can add an intriguing look to your reel if it’s done the right way.

SUMMARY

I had a lot of fun putting this reel together.  As a sports and film junkie I have to say my favorite shots came from the two projects listed above and I look forward to the opportunity to film other sporting events. *wink wink*

Overall, I was very pleased with how our reel turned out.  And as our project base expands, so will our reel.

Check out our demo reel below!