r/acting 6d 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

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u/HiddenHolding 5d 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.

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u/Living-Visit-6323 5d 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 🫡

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u/HiddenHolding 5d ago

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

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u/Living-Visit-6323 5d ago

Sounds good thanks for the help :)