 Alright, it is Friday and that means F&F Friday and this is part three of the DemoReel series and today it's all going to be about receiving DemoReel feedback. Alright, so we talked about how to structure your reel, what to put on there, the content of your reel and how you need to kind of tailor it to each company, all those detailed things. But now when you're done with that reel, you need feedback, you need to know if your reel is okay, if the shots are working, if the flow is right, and if everything is coming together nicely. So here are my recommendations in terms of where to ask, what to ask, and how to take in the feedback. First, ask feedback from regular people, not just animators. Go ask your mom, go ask your parents, your friends, people, random people out there to show them your reel so that you get a general impression. Because you don't want to go straight to animators, but they're going to go, on frame 17, your overlap is wrong. That's fine, that's for later. But as a whole, you want to bring it to people who will say, that's not funny, I don't get this. Is this supposed to be sad? You want general feedback if a shot is working in terms of the general vibe, the emotion, just the general feel you want from the shot. That will give you a much better, broader impression. But of course, put your reel online. So put it on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on forums, wherever you can to get a general feedback from animators and artists, so it's a bit more detailed and a bit more specific. But everybody will have an opinion, so it's going to be up to you to filter all that feedback. Because if you get 10 different notes, that doesn't mean that you have to address every single note. Sometimes the note is maybe not that good, or not that relevant, or maybe too much work, you also have to kind of look at your time constraints. So if you have 10 different pieces, you're gonna have to pick and choose. But if nine out of 10, they're telling you the same things, well, then there's a pattern and you're gonna recognize, maybe I should address that note. I would also recommend to bring your reel to places like CTN or SIGRAF, or I don't know, wherever GDC, whatever your type of reel is, and the feedback that you need from people, just go to the specific places. Now, I know this is tricky, this might be a location problem, you can't travel there, it's too expensive. But if you can choose the professionals in one-on-one situation, try to take advantage of that opportunity. Now, also that being said, once you're there, everybody wants feedback from professionals, so you might be on this some severe time crunch. So if you are at the very end of a line and you show your reel, and you don't think you have enough time for the person to look at every single shot, what I would ask is, what is the worst shot on my reel? What do I need to cut? Because again, your reel is going to be judged by your worst piece, potentially, hopefully not, but that can happen. So if you show the reel and it is watched at once, just go, what should I cut? And then you get the worst offender out, and then you keep working on it. That being said, don't be precious. So if you worked on the shot for like six months, and you love it, but the overall feedback is this is cool, but this needs to get out, don't be precious, don't hang on to your shots. I mean, it's kill your babies, kill your darlings, whatever all the sayings are. But if you get all the feedback, and it's from someone that's professional that says, you know, this is working, but this is going to, I know this is a repeat or just doesn't quite work, have to really pay attention to that, and then take your shot out, even if you really, really like it. Because why else are you getting feedback? So go general in notes, then a bit more specific online, if you can get one on one feedback from professionals, that's great. So you hone that all that detailed feedback to really massage and kind of finesse your final product. Now, once you have that, you send it out to the companies. And obviously, you will hope for feedback from those companies. So what I would do is maybe every six months, this is very subjective, all this kind of depends on the market depends on the company and all that stuff. This is a bit more nebulous, but I would say maybe every six months, I mean, you can chime in in the comments if professionals have other opinions, but I wouldn't send in like every month in terms of here's my reel, I didn't hear back, here's my reel again, and so on. So don't pester people. So I would send something and I don't know, three to six, I would say six months. I don't know, it really all depends on your reels. I wouldn't send the same thing. So when you resend it, your reel has to be new, maybe one shot from the last reel, that's maybe fantastic. And you put that somewhere in the middle as a reminder, hey, edit this. But overall, if you resend your reel, you got to have updates to constantly work on your shots, make them better, and then replace. And again, as for feedback, this is a constant loop of adding things, fixing asking a feedback, replacing, resending, and you have the company information in terms of an HR person or whoever is going to look at your reel. I think it's okay to ask once, hey, did you get my reel? Everything's okay. Did I miss something? Everything else you need. But if they say that's okay, then let it be just wait for them to hire you. And if you hear nothing, well, then they probably have their reasons, either the reel is not good enough yet, don't have time, they didn't have time to look at it at all yet. There are many, many reasons are out of your control. Again, I would just update your reel, keep working on it and resend new material. But out of all of this, since the topic is feedback, really pay attention to the feedback and be open to getting the feedback and receiving criticism. Because I know it's difficult, you worked on those shots and personal shots, you put in your blood, sweat, and tears. And then you hear from someone who doesn't know you at all, that doesn't know how much you work, you put in behind those shots. Now I don't like it, take it out. That can be tough to hear. But still, I wouldn't start defending your shot where someone takes time against, copy at CTN, they look at your reel, they gave you all that feedback, and then you go, yeah, but you see what I was intending to do in this shot is fine. Whatever you intended did not read with this specific person. You might argue, well, maybe it's this person, but everybody else got it. Fine. But you really have to be open to feedback, but you have to be open to tough feedback where they might tell you you're not ready yet or this shot needs a lot more work. And that's just part of being an animator, you're going to work on something, you're going to show it to someone, and that someone is going to have opinions and speaking of opinions, all of this list, that's just my opinion is very subjective. But from what I hear what I've gone through, these are kind of the points that I would consider somewhat important. Obviously, I'm open to more feedback, comments or open anything you want to add to this list. But generally, I would say generally ask generally for broad notes, then dive into more detailed, detailed notes to really refine your reel, be open to feedback, be ready to cut shots, even if you loved it, maybe cut it in half or cut it completely, whatever it takes to streamline your reel and make it just absolutely the most powerful thing people will see and want to make people hire you. Now, speaking of presentation, that is going to be the next topic. It's going to be demo real presentation in real life and online. I have a lot more different detail things about that. Next chapter is going to be demo real expectations, because that's a whole other topic about sending your reel than expecting, oh, I'm going to get my job right away about that's a whole different thing. I want to talk about that. And part six, potentially the last one is going to be demo real interviews, the do's and don'ts, again, what to expect, reading interview, all those things that you should consider questions you should ask, things you should not ask, and so on. So for now, I'm envisioning six parts of this series. If there's more and I get more feedback, maybe comments, I can add something more, maybe like a recap or something, I'm open to anything. But for now, that is it. And thank you for watching. As always, you know, this subscribe and like do whatever you want to do, whatever helps you. I upload almost every day. So subscribe and hit that bell button if you want to get notifications about all my uploads. And I will see you next week. Thanks for watching.