Showreel Research

As with every year, we are required to produce a showreel of our latest work to showcase at the end of the year, plus this is standard practice.

However, with so much riding on my showreel this year, I decided to look at a few professional showreels from the studios I've been researching and other practitioners to give me an idea of what it is I should be including within my own showreel and what to avoid. Although I had a good idea of what industry was looking for from the presentation Annabeth gave a few months ago, I wanted a base of examples to work from. Here's what I found: 

1). Boulder Media TV.


2). Karrot Animation.


3). Reg Isaac.


4). Arcus Animation Studios. 

5). The Brothers McLeod.

Throughout all 5 of these showreels, it is obvious that all companies and practitioners have taken the time to select their best work and made sure to put them together in a way that keeps an audience entertained throughout the entire duration. I've also found, with the exception of the last reel, that all of the reels are under 2 minutes long, which coincides with what I've been told about keeping showreels short and snappy.

Another thing I have noticed is that there is a difference between the studio showreels and the individual showreel. In the studio showreels, it is all completed work, whereas in the individual there is also work in progress stuff in there alongside completed stuff. I feel that this is because of the difference in nature of the showreels. Whereas the studio showreels are attempting to showcase what they can achieve for a client, the individual showreel is attempting to showcase abilities and skills to a potential employer, who will want to see work ranging from in progress to complete to see that you are capable of working on something from start to finish. I also noticed that the individual showreel very clearly labelled elements of the animation that were there if they had only completed a certain element of a scene, which is missing from the studio showreels.

Whilst the studio showreels are good, I feel that I will be aiming more to achieve the same as the individual showreel, as I am using this as a way to demonstrate my animation skills in the hopes of acquiring a job, so I will need to carefully consider what I show within my showreel and make sure that it contains a wide variety of animation.