First Reel

Saba Mazloum · June 9, 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H9IdmesJWo

Heres my first try for my demo reel, iv only worked in the industry for 6 months.

PLease give me any advice to my reel.. anything would help. Thanks..

Dominik Muench · June 9, 2006

nice music, i really like the guitar backwards smashing scene.

Saba Mazloum · June 10, 2006

nice music, i really like the guitar backwards smashing scene.

Sweeet, yah I wasnt so sure about the music, cuz it gets kinda messy in the end. And the guitar part was shot 60fps on the Panasonic HVX P2, it turned out pretty good with 720p 60fps..

But is there any parts i should change?

Tannnks alot guys..

David Mullen ASC · June 10, 2006

It could be shorter, tossing out the weaker shots. They say that your reel is only as good as its weakest shot.

Saba Mazloum · June 10, 2006

It could be shorter, tossing out the weaker shots. They say that your reel is only as good as its weakest shot.

Mr. David, is it posible for you to tell me which are the weaker shots? I'm going to go to Taipei Taiwan to see if i can work in the film industry there.. so all the help i can get would be awsome

Cole Webley · June 12, 2006

Mr. David, is it posible for you to tell me which are the weaker shots? I'm going to go to Taipei Taiwan to see if i can work in the film industry there.. so all the help i can get would be awsome

For me the weaker spots would include the shots of when the two men come into the office and sit down and are speaking with the other guy...to me the weaker shots are those that don't showcase any particular element of cinematography-such as your use of line, depth, color, blocking, use of lighting, camera movement, (refer to Bruce Block's "The Visual Story" it is a great reference) etc.

Hope that helps. You have some nice stuff, and I am sure you could even make it looker better by cutting some of those "weaker" shots.

Best of luck.

-Cole

David Mullen ASC · June 12, 2006

I find when cutting a reel into a montage, at some point you have to decide whether to keep some feeling for the narrative, like cutting a trailer, or simply jettison any scene structure and use shots as stand-alone images.

It partly depends on how long the reel has to be, but also whether keeping some sense of the narrative helps or not. It also depends on whether the shots that make up a scene are so good, and work so well as a sequence, that it's OK to keep them together. Otherwise, it might be better just to pull the one decent shot out of the scene and junk the rest and not try and give a clue as to the original story.

You also want to avoid repetition too much. You may have several great close-ups all lit with a dramatic side-light, but you probably can make your point with just a couple of those.

Saba Mazloum · June 16, 2006

Mr.Mullen and the others, thank you so much for the helpfull comments and pointers.

Whats exciting is my friend who is a actor in taipei is going to take me to meet with few directos, and the main FIlm production house in taiwan. So u never know..

Thanks again.