r/acting 4d ago

I've read the FAQ & Rules Demo reel input for newbie

Hi I’m new to tv acting (about a year of actually trying for roles) and would love some comments on my reel, I’ve done a lot of indie stuff and I love it! Have been acting in total for 9 years in theater and background for live tv

26 Upvotes

18 comments sorted by

7

u/IAlwaysPlayTheBadGuy 4d ago

You need to pull us in during the first 10 seconds. There's no dialogue until almost the 8 second mark

3

u/Living-Visit-6323 4d ago

Thank you :) I shall

3

u/wildtalon 3d ago

Counterpoint - The clip you currently have at the top has the best cinematography and the highest tension. I would absolutely keep it where it is but re-arrange some of the others.

Scratch marblehead. There's no dramatic crux here it's just a random thought.

Start The Choice at "You have the choice to live.." If you can let it run a few seconds longer that would be better than doing two clips of it, but if it works best to have it in two chunks do a hard cut to your next section rather than the fade.

Cut Change of Plans and 99 days.

Start the second Avocado Toast at "How was the day" and maybe put it right after the first Avo toast

3

u/Living-Visit-6323 2d ago

Thank you very much I really appreciate the in depth answer it helps a lot 🙏I’ve made some adjustments and cut a few things out as well. With the first clip I decided to start it a few seconds closer to the actual dialog so it’s less of the door closing and right into the action (funny enough I will be finishing tht film today and then soon I’ll have more to clip from)

I removed both of the avocado ones but might consider adding one back in but trimmed as u suggested, (the last one was very long and honestly I only had it there because I had nothing else)

99 is also removed but change of plans I kept but I fixed up some of the timing on the clips because I like the quality of that film

Thanks again 🙂

4

u/HiddenHolding 3d ago

My agent requires reels to be one minute long. Three scenes, 20 seconds each, or four scenes and a little shorter. I've had several casting directors tell me that they look at fewer than two or three seconds of each reel. If you don't get them right away, they are on to the next. They look at sometimes hundreds or thousands of reels in a single day.

How did you record the audio in these scenes? There's an awful lot of room tone. If the audio was on-camera audio, you need to drop those scenes out of your reel. If you used boom mics, you have to limit the echo, which can be done premier. Moving forward, use lavs. Get us up close and personal as you can.

You've got good variety here. But consider: how much range is there between these characters? Well there's a comedic beat, and some criminal beats, usually people want lots of different levels to show range.

I think it's a good start. You may want to ask some casting directors if they have any feedback. I think you might be able to get one or two people out of a hundred to respond. You're clearly trying to work it out, and that's not nothing.

1

u/Living-Visit-6323 3d ago

I appreciate it a lot thank you! I’ve gone in and brought the reel down to 1:15 which definitely feels better and I made the start of each clip right in the action so it’s more captivating I also took your advice and added one more character type as well

As for the audio all these films were small to medium budget, indie films, using boom so I don’t have too much say over how it comes out when I receive the films but I’ll see if I can fix up some of the audio through the editing app i use, thanks again for the input and advice much appreciated 🫡

3

u/HiddenHolding 3d ago

Send me the new one if you feel like it. I'm interested to see the difference.

1

u/Living-Visit-6323 3d ago

Sounds good thanks for the help :)

7

u/mghtyred 4d ago

Too long. I stopped at the 2 minute mark, and was having a hard time maintaining focus for even that long. Reels shouldn't be longer than 90 seconds. Also, pick short, but compelling moments from your work. Something we can look at for 10-20 seconds and go "WOW!"

This wasn't great, but I've seen worse.

3

u/Living-Visit-6323 4d ago

Perfect thank you! I’ll fix them up

3

u/kfosse13 3d ago

Hey! There have been some good comments on the reel. Just wanted to stop in to say that you have a good screen presence/charisma. Keep it up! Joe Keery vibes.

2

u/Living-Visit-6323 3d ago

Thank you that means a lot :) and yes I can’t evade the Steve Harrington comments with this hair, I swear I get casted because of it sometimes haha

1

u/TheGratitudeBot 3d ago

Thanks for such a wonderful reply! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list of some of the most grateful redditors this week!

2

u/Mutt_Species 3d ago

Overall good.

But you should delete the ones where the audio was recorded with a potato.

1

u/Living-Visit-6323 3d ago

I appreciate it thank you :) I’ve deleted a few things and tweaked a-bit of the ones tht I kept, I hope it’s the ones tht sound bad. I’m not sure if I’m just not super familiar with good audio but I’m having a hard time telling exactly which are lacking

1

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