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Documentary / Narrative Hybrid Reel?


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I feel I'm in a bit of a weird situation in terms of making a reel, as most of my experience is in shooting documentaries, although I also shoot narrative films from time to time. I've only been out of school for a year.

 

One of my challenges with my old documentary reel was that it didn't really show my ability to light, which I had several prospective clients comment about. However, I have nowhere near enough good narrative footage with artificial lighting to make a decent reel, so I decided to combine the two and make a hybrid reel that you can watch here:

 

 

I'd be interested to hear what feedback people have here, as I feel it's a bit different than most reels I've seen. What is and isn't working?

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I think it all depends on what kind of jobs/projects you are trying to get. Honestly I would have a short 1 minute or so teaser reel and separate 2 to 2 1/2 minute reels for narrative/music video, doc/reality and corporate/industrial. It's a little more work but, just like a resume, it's better to have something more inline with the job you are getting more so than something with a broad approach to showcasing work.

 

Those are my thoughts. Best of luck and happy shooting!

 

Alex

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Thanks,

 

Yeah, I need to shoot more narratives and music videos, as I have nowhere near enough good material to make a reel of those alone. I'm basically looking to continue shooting docs and corporates, while getting more into narratives. Plus, from time to time, docs have reenactment sequences, where more artificial low-key lighting is used, so I want to show I could do that.

 

For the time being, I think I'll just do what I've been doing: have a doc reel and if it's a narrative project, send them an example of a narrative that I've shot along with my doc reel, clearly saying that most of my experience is in documentaries. Most of the narrative projects that I shoot the directors want in a hand-held doc style, which I assume is why they hired me.

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