I haven’t cut many demo reels before, but I’ve been an editor ten years, so it didn’t seem impossible to learn.  So I spent a few days researching great demo reels, reading up on tips, and somewhere in there, it clicked.  48 hours later, I had this.

I sent that out to ten potential clients this morning at 5am.  Today, at 2PM, I already have one contract offer and one request for more information.

So what is a good demo reel?

A good demo reel is a trailer for your talent.

As a filmmaker, I was having a hard time cutting a “demo reel.”  It was vague.  But something I do know how to cut is a good trailer.  And what make up the key elements of a trailer?

• Trailers have great music

Not always true, but often enough to be a good rule of thumb.  A trailer (and a reel) is essentially a montage, and montage thrives on a strong partnership with an evocative song.  Whatever song you choose will instill the flavor, the style, and the heartbeat of your reel.  Choose carefully.

What I did: I spent an entire day digging through my music library, listening to bits, jumping around in a song. (Remember, you don’t need a perfect 3 minutes, you need several solid 20-30 second segments you can stitch together, taken from anywhere in the song).  I fiddled with a lot of ideas, and eventually settled on “5-4″ by the Gorillaz.

I tried using Pandora.com to find songs similar to “5-4,” but nothing quite popped.  I also thought about cutting together different covers of “Wicked Game” (one by HIM and one by Bassboosa) to create different moods within the trailer, but the changes were a bit abrupt (didn’t work for me, but if you can get it to fly, go for it!)

• Trailers provoke interest

It’s not just that it looks or sounds good; a good trailer suggests that there is a WHOLE LOT more where this came from.  Your demo reel needs to do the same thing.  There needs to be a sense of overflowing talent, as though you couldn’t cram everything into it.  You get that feeling by trimming until only the best parts remain.

What I did: I took time to comb through all of the material that I thought had merit, piled it all into a directory, and started pulling clips.  From there, like any trailer, it became a puzzle game: dropping in clips, finding interesting combinations, and juggling the pieces around until it was as clean and tight as I could make it.

This flows right into:

• Trailers only show the good parts of the movie

When was the last time you bought a ticket to a movie with a boring trailer?  The same thing applies to your reel: leave the bland parts out.  If it doesn’t pop, cut it.

What I Did: Killed my darlings.  I had some great material I shot for a group called “RISC Management” – very beautiful footage, but too stationary for my “trailer.”  Every choice comes back down to the same basic question: not “is this element right,” but “is this element right for this purpose and context?”

I’m saving the footage for later, when I cut a more slow-paced, sincere reel for clients who are looking for heart over “whizbang wow.”

• Trailers are fast

Nobody’s going to watch a 7-minute trailer.  Two and half minutes is pushing it as it is.  Similarly, your demo reel needs to be fast and furious (two cents into Vin Diesel’s hat).  I read from multiple sources that a client will rarely look past the first 30 seconds.  Sounds like a mainstream audience to me.  You have to hook them quick, get out quick.  This also means: don’t save your best material for last. Put it up front.  The audience isn’t going to watch that long.

What I did: I stopped frequently to watch the reel over and over.  When you’re watching, don’t zone out or fall in love with your work.  Be alert.  Watch it like you have better things to be doing (your audience does).  And whenever you feel the pace flag, note it.  You don’t need to start chopping immediately, but as you watch again and again, ideas will come for how to fix the slow parts.

NOTE: “Well-paced” doesn’t mean “fast.”  A good pace has levels: intense speed for a bit, and then some relief with a slower moment, then back again.  All-fast or all-slow is death by monotony: it’s like a visual metronome.

• Trailers are original

Having great footage and cutting it well isn’t enough.  There has to be something that breaks your reel out of the pack.  Do your research, find out what everyone else is doing, and find an original twist.  You can bet that a lot of people will simply be copying what they’ve seen in other reels; if you can come up with a new hook, you’ll catch attention.

What I Did: I saw a lot of reels with flashy intros that SLAPPED people to attention with a big animation sequence in the beginning; a great choice, but a bad choice for me if I wanted to stand out.  So I played with footage for awhile, without knowing how I was going to start, and I started thinking about how I have shown people my work before: my iPhone.

From there, I knew I had something.  An off-beat, quiet opening that kick-started the meat of my reel.  Quiet sells can be dangerous if you run them too long, but it only took six and a half seconds for the music to start, and by 00:15, we’re fully into the reel.

• Trailers are not made in a day or a vacuum

You’re going to be showing this for a long, long time: it is worth taking time to plan it out.  Come up with alternative ideas, explore other possibilities.  The mark of a professional isn’t the ability to be right every time, it’s the ability to generate multiple solutions and recognize the right one when he/she sees it.

Run your ideas past other people and get their feedback.  Sometimes other people will have great ideas, and other times you’ll realize (like I did) that one of your “great ideas” is actually completely nonsensical.

What I Did: I planned and edited the reel over two days.  This was even a bit of a rush, but I have potential clients waiting to see it, so there wasn’t a lot of room for error.  But I was on track to for error anyway: I had planned to shoot an additional piece where I took two paper cups (with an old heaphone cable taped to the bottom of each) and plugged them into my iPhone.  I would alter the music so that as I plugged in the headphone cable, the music would come booming out of the cups.  I thought it was a neat, visually-different way to start the piece.

When I ran it by my brother, he gave me a look of such confusion that I dropped it immediately.

• Trailers let you know what they are selling

Apparently “forgetting your contact info” is common enough that almost EVERY demo reel advice I read included that. Don’t forget your contact information.

What I Did: I knew I planned on releasing this on the Internet, so I created two versions of my reel: one with and one without my phone number. My phone number will be compressed to DVD and handed out – if I’m emailing potential clients, I can just include my phone number in the email.

Remember, unless you password-protect the video, everyone in the world will get to see it. Keep that in mind, for many reasons.

• Trailers capture the spirit of their source

This is where your shot selection, music selection, and editing choices blend into one big pot called “tone.”  What you juxtapose against what, and how fast you do it, decides the spirit of your piece.  Editing is just another kind of adaptation: you’re trying to adapt your attitude and your ability into a visual form people can emotionally understand.  There is no way to teach this, but luckily, you can learn it – by doing it over and over again (See Ira Glass On Creativity part three).

What I Did: The important part of this reel was to convey my talent, professionalism, and ability to deliver a high-end product for national-level clients.  At the end, however, it felt like there was a bit of room for humor, so rather than just cut to a title card with my information, I “changed the channel” and began playing “Call Me Now” (with appropriate whipcracks).

Humor is a great tool for a trailer, because by its nature, humor is surprising.  Humor calls out the ridiculousness of a situation, and draws the audience closer to you emotionally.  It’s like saying, “Do you see this thing?  Isn’t it crazy?” and lets them in on the joke with you.

Making friends.  WITH MEDIA.

The downside is it can be mistaken for unprofessionalism, so use your best judgment, and remember that few of your clients will be from your age or peer group.

Finally, just for fun, I thought you’d like to see this.  These are Pixar’s official guidelines for demo reels.  (Check out the jobs list: anybody wanna be a line cook or cafe host at Pixar?)

Some of the sites I consulted while cutting my reel and writing this article:

• Guide to Good Demo Reels (Written in 1996, but the precepts are still very applicable.  Covers a lot of great professional notes, like: don’t take credit for others’ work, and don’t feature shots you learned from a tutorial in your reel – your employer has probably seen them before)
• Bill Davis’ Advice on Demo Reels (Video professional Bill Davis reminds us of many do’s and don’ts – especially: don’t forget to put your contact information on the reel!)
• How to Make a Demo Reel

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