 Welcome back to another FNA and today is part two of Animation Demo Real Tips and Tricks and last time was all about the best shot first and general tips and today's all about demorial structure, how to present it, what to include in the length of it and all that good stuff. So first of all a few general tips about your demorial structure and just the content of it. As mentioned in part one whatever you do the content has to fit the company you're sending your reel to. Before you do even anything you got to consider that so if you do anything super cartoony and you send that to a VFX company it's probably not going to be the best idea. Generally content wise just avoid anything about politics and sexual jokes and racial stuff anything that's just offensive and clearly not the content that the company wants to see or wants to be associated with. Also super obvious don't include work from other people don't steal other people's shot it's a small industry chances are whoever's going to watch this is going to go wait I know this shot this is from this and this and this person this is not yours and your toast. Also don't include shots you're not allowed to show maybe you're working on the movie and that movie hasn't been released yet so you're not allowed to put this online unless it's been shown in the behind the scenes or it's a trailer shot but then it has been approved by PR and all the marketing department for everybody to see as general consumption so you can put that on your reel other than that if the movie hasn't been released or anything else that hasn't been released yet you should not show it on your reel especially online if you put it online if you send it to a company maybe if you have permission and you got to put it behind a password wall then maybe but generally when you put things on your reel that have been released on DVD Blu-ray streaming video on the man and so on which also implies that if the movie hasn't come out yet how are you in possession of those shots did you steal that from the company server another big no no don't do that. Now in terms of demoral structure presentation you want to keep your shots clean so only show geometry so don't do anything with controllers or your grid or anything that's distracting you just want to show something very clean yes this can be just a play blast and it doesn't have to be a render unless your shot is 100 awesome and then the render will help but generally if your shot is not 100 awesome and you add lighting it's a bit why did you do this to spend more time on your animation and don't go all that way down to you know all the sound effects and and renders and all that stuff just focus on animation and keep it clean visually. Now only include your best work that's super important you might like this shot that you did 10 years ago and you have good phone memory and all that good stuff but you're going to be judged by the worst shot that's on your reel so only the good stuff in terms of structure your best shot has to come first and I talked about that in part one so generally a shorter reel that's awesome is better than a long one that's kind of eh you want your reel to also be one or two minutes long I think two minutes is stretching it personally if you've seen everything after 30 seconds in a way I mean you don't have to pad it it's a three minute to five minute reel if you just dump everything that you've ever done on it it's kind of it's very boring so keep it to one maybe two minutes I would say one minute is okay shot wise you can even just have three shots on it I've seen a reel and it was pretty cool I gotta find it and it was three shots that person got into blue sky and it showed it was a good variety it was just enough two shots it's kind of short one shot it's kind of arrogant I don't know I want to see a reel that has one shot and that person got a job maybe somewhere but I would say at least three shots and around a minute maximum two minutes because the thing is if you have a reel that's over minute chances are you're going to repeat yourself in in terms of the content of your shots if you have an awesome creature shot or awesome weight assignment shot or awesome lip-sync emotional shot why have two or three of them you're already shown that you can do it so why repeat yourself and make extra long chances are people will be bored and will turn off your reel and miss something awesome that you might have at the end of the reel speaking of ends the end has to end as strongly as the beginning I mean generally your whole reel has to be fantastic right but I would say the best shot first the second best shot at the end and still awesome awesomeness in the middle now you might have shots where you've done the camera where you might have done only the background or you might have done just certain elements so what you could include is the shot explanation meaning that you have either symbols or by text saying camera only all animation or foreground characters and camera or only background so you could include that either text or with icons but the thing is then people are going to be distracted and look up and down so it would be better if you're a shot just everything in the shot is something that you did it will be easier to watch and for the flow it won't be as distracting but of course that is not the reality you might have done just the background so then you just kind of have to let people know through text or icon whatever you want to do you might also include a shot before and after for context maybe it's really important to be seen like that so what I would do is if your shot is not yours just gray it out just have a gray and yours is all poppy with full colors and everything and the next one for context is gray you can always note for context only now speaking of text if you do have your title card or explanations of what it is like a tiny shot real breakdown type of thing right spell check make sure everything is written if you have your name and then animation is misspelled I mean I know it's not the end of the world and you're going to be judged by the content of your reel but still just take the extra time it will show that you just made an effort just check spell check so and speaking of title cards you want to start with maybe I can three second beginning intro card meaning it's your name and character animator the title that you're applying to and potentially even the year like demo reel 2019 but we'll keep it short it's just okay this is who I am let's go and you want to show the shots don't make it 10 15 seconds and no flying logos or stuff coming in or anything that's just boring and I want to get to the reel right away that being said at the end of the reel then I will make it 10 or 15 seconds where you have your name your title and all the contact information and then keep that long just in case someone goes well I gotta write this down a little type it on my phone or whatever sound you make because you type it right but you want to give people time to like okay well let's write this down well that's the link for this and so on and so on but I will keep that at the end and not the beginning because again you want to go straight into your awesome shots the cleanest thing of course would be your name title maybe the year and responsible for all animation and then just the real starts and you got no logos you got no icons or no text you can just focus on your shots that's the ideal thing now you might want to add music so I would just add music that fits the reel so if you have something where it's like an emotional acting shot and you in the background you got some crazy music in the background that's going to be a weird contrast and distract from your shots so if you already add music make sure it adds to the shot it complements the shot it could have high energy or something more quiet worst case just no music now speaking of something loud also make sure that your sound levels are even throughout the reel so if you have your intro whatever and then you have your first shot a certain level and the second shot is really quiet you're like oh I can't I can't hear I missed something in a dialogue if you're in a hurry they might not rewind and they're gonna miss what you just did and the next shot is suddenly super loud like chaos pandemonium and it might turn off the reel I'm exaggerating but anyway keep your shots really at each level has to be the same so for music and dialogue and everything just make sure that everything flows and also sounds consistent now structurized in terms of what you're presenting it's okay to show professional work and personal work it doesn't have to be all separate but maybe your professional work is not always the best thing you've ever done depending on you know feedback and how the shot ends up being so you can add things that you did in your spare time it also shows that you took time to do something that's even better you just want to flesh out your reel it just shows you extra commitment so it's not bad to mix all that and speak of mixing and to me I think it's okay to mix the variety and the order meaning it's not here's a block of all creature here's a block of all lip sync here's a block of all pantomime it might that might also flow in a kind of a boring way where it's just too structured I think mixing it up and kind of showing this and then this and then that it might just you know give it a certain energy to the reel now you might have a shot that's really long where maybe two-thirds are okay maybe the middle part or the ending is not the best just cut it out just show the best part and if everything is awesome but it's a 15 second long shot then maybe show if you can if it's cuttable into beats maybe show one moment then other shots then another moment other shots and then that last moment of that one long shot just always think about how is the flow are people interested or is it is their moment where things become a bit boring now this is all in terms of acting and pantomime and just creature stuff where it's kind of 8 to b but what if you do have cycles I think cycles are okay depending on where you want to send it to I would not have shots where there's a cycle front view and then you repeat that couple times and then a cycle side view will be a couple times in and the top view like it gets really really long so I would just present everything into one shot cycle the couple times so it's not just 15 frames and you missed it but don't make it a minute long but I would show you know a side front three-quarter and maybe a top if needed just gets maybe too busy but definitely a three-quarter or if you want to make it super clean just have the cycle and then it just turns I mean there's the turntable or the camera turns however you want to structure it but so you can see kind of every view but that might again be too long so it might just be one size the three-quarter and maybe a front and side split up in the other half now you might have worked something where you use reference either yourself or reference for creature work or whatever you do I think and I haven't seen this too much but this is just my personal opinion you could show just your actual shot within the reel and when the whole thing is done and you show your title card with your contact information you can always say at the end additional material at the end in terms of like a behind the scenes or how I did it so after that information you show the creature shot whatever you have with a picture in picture with your reference and maybe it shows multiple footage pieces you put together into one block and then you took all this and made this one awesome animation shot it could be cool to see how you went from reference to final animation I'm not sure if you want to show this in the main reel again it's very subjective I will probably just keep the clean shot in the middle and at the very end you can show hey this is what I did and this is the reference that I use them now speaking of the end you might have done a short movie but you know chances are not every shot is awesome or not every shot is a demo reel shot sometimes you have a shot that's very static that works as a story point or a storytelling thing or for contrast but as a single shot on your reel maybe not that good so what I would do is take the best shot from your short put that in your reel and then at the end you can say here's the link if you want to see the full short or maybe even add the full short at the end of the reel if people have time to watch it I'm not sure but that could be something either at the end of the reel or show a link where people can go and they can watch the whole thing that's kind of it those are my two cents to demo real structure I probably forgot things I got a list here but that's kind of what I was thinking about if you have other things that I missed obviously in the comments you can let me know and I can always add that and maybe at the very end of these series I can do kind of a wrap up and kind of add things that I forgot or people suggest it so comments are open of course and that's it for now for part two as always if you watch this till the very end I really do appreciate it if you're gonna like this you can hit like you're gonna subscribe you can hit subscribe and hit that bell button because I do upload a lot so you get all the vacations and as always if you find that all this is helpful you want to apply this to your shots but you want to want to want feedback I do have workshops they're always open you can sign up link in the description the emails and all that good stuff let me know I am always ready for workshops so there you go thanks again for watching and I will see you in my next clip