Balancing a Demo Reel?

[BrendanLeahy]

I'm currently putting together a new reel. I love shooting music videos, concerts, and narratives, but those don't seem to make quite as much income as the corporate videos and local commercials. I'd like to appeal to both realms (the hyper-creative and the fairly creative) as I really enjoy doing both.

My issue is that I can't seem to figure out a good balance - the music video scenes I've chosen don't seem to flow well with the slow, visually different/less stylized commercials and corporate videos (and vice versa).

Any tips or examples from others that have come across this? Would it be best to split these two worlds up into two separate demo reels?

I can certainly upload my reel-in-progress if anyone would like to see and offer advice.

 

[Cody Cuellar]

First off EVERYBODY will probably have a different idea or approach so you'll ultimately have to decide what works for you and your goals as a DP.

I'm no guru by any means, but being in the world of both cinematography and post - I have cut TONS of reels. And what I've learned and now do for my cinematography page is simply cut two reels. On my website, if you want to hire me for narrative work, you watch the reel called "Narrative" and if you want to hire me for music video, commercial, or otherwise non-cinematic stuff, you watch the "Sizzle/commercial" reel. The sizzle include a FEW shots that were extra glossy from my other reel, and my narrative includes one or two shots of narrative stuff from commercials or music videos, but I don't show any singing as to not break the cinematic feel. I think this is a pretty decent approach for me at least, since I want to focus on narrative work anyway. So the first reel you see is just that with a lot of cinematic shots. However; I never want to lose out on work, so I keep a short and sweet commercial reel just in case.

You can take a look at how I have mine set up at http://codycuellar.com/ and figure out if something like that works for you. Hope this helps!

 

[BrendanLeahy]

Cody - thank you very much for the advice. That makes a lot of sense, and appreciate the mention of the "no singing" part! Your work looks great btw!

 

[Jason Kraynek]

this is just what I'm going through as well. 2years ago i did a "cinematographic" reel and a "commercial" reel that i felt worked well
last year i just did a dp/showreel
this year I'm backed up w 2 years of "corporate" type stuff and 1 year of "narrative" stuff so i thought to combine them but just putting highlights down to sort through has past the 9 hr mark so i'm unsure which route to go.
Just bought a Epic and Cine lenses end of last month so this reel will be the last of the c100/5D work and i def want to get it out before i try to mix 5k footage in there.
alas, i'll let you know but I'm glad I'm not the only DP in Chicago with these issues