Making a Reel: Uploaded and ready to go!

When we last left our hero, he was engaging in a healthy round of Facepalm after futilely smashing his head against the horrors of assembling reel footage, like scissors trying to beat rock. Nothing was going his way, and it seemed all was lost.

AND THEN...

My First Acting Reel!

There it is! I can't believe it's finally done! Just when I was about to give up on a pretty important chunk of the reel, a professional editor friend of mine said "Uh. I can convert those files for you." AND IT WAS SO!

Special thanks to David Haverty for getting me the 1000 Ways to Die footage. And an honorable mention goes to my Dad for having his heart in the right place by videotaping the TV screen of my Operation Repo footage and snail mailing me the CD.

Ultimately, I decided that my Repo footage really didn't showcase me in any especially helpful way, so I figured I'd ditch it. A good reel should DEFINE YOU as an actor. My reel showcases me as a mostly comedic actor with a unique physical build capable of playing some very diverse roles. Some would ask why not throw in a dramatic scene or two? Well, because since I've been in LA, I've never been cast in a drama. Not once.

This tells me that, based on their first impressions, casting directors think I should be funny. I can cry about this or I can embrace it and show them that by heck, I am pretty funny! This is what potential agents will be expecting of me as well, I'm thinking. Besides, money from comedies is just as spendable as the boo-hooey stuff.

That being said, I would like to showcase the more grounded side of my skill-set soon. There are a lot of places in LA where you can pay professionals to shoot specific content for your reel, and I suspect in the nearish future I may pay some friends at ProduceYourReel a visit....

But for now, I'm going to see how far this one takes me.

Some quick demo reel tips that I've picked up this last month or so:

-Always put your name first so the directors actually know whose reel they're watching, and make sure CONTACT INFO is clearly displayed at the end. You could maybe put some contact info with your name in the beginning too, but I felt like that might be overkill for mine.

-The SHORTER THE BETTER. If you're a nobody (like me!) then don't you dare go longer than two minutes. If you can do it in one, so much the better. Don't waste time making sure viewers understand every little thing of what's going on in the scene. They aren't watching a movie, they're watching you. Once the character, emotion and arc of the scene is established, MOVE ON!

-Simple, simple, simple! Don't waste people's time with scrolling graphics or clever transitions. Casting directors don't care about your fancy editing skills.

-Also... and I know this seems obvious, but make sure any given clip actually has you doing something interesting. If it's a boring scene or crappy writing, even if you're good in it, you're probably better off not putting it in there. Unless it's a really recognizable show. Which brings me to...

-Put your biggest accomplishments up there first, then scroll back in order of importance. You have about ten seconds to capture a casting director's attention, and "Hey! I know this show!" just about always helps in that regard.

Anyway, hopefully that was informative to you folks. I'll keep you posted as I submit this bad boy to various agents and managers all over town. Wish me luck!

Making a Reel: What is this Nightmare?!?

Some of you might remember me writing a post in which I optimistically talked about how I was getting my reel together and all the exciting doors that could open for me once I had one. All I had to do was get the footage together! Well, that was more than a month ago. Here's what I've run into.

I want my reel to consist of my segments on 1000 Ways to Die and Operation Repo, my zombie PSA, Melvin Becomes a Man, and Dude Tips. As you may have noticed from all the hyperlinks, all of these clips can be found on the internet. So it should be super easy to collect all the footage, right? ...Right?

Let me say first off that Youtube is awesome. All you have to do to lift a Youtube video is put the url on www.keepvid.com and it takes care of everything for ya.

1000 Ways to Die and Operation Repo is where I'm having problems. My clips are streaming on their respective websites, and are protected against greedy little data thieves like myself. Okay, fair enough. But these shows have employed hundreds of actors, surely all I have to do is just email the folks from the show, and they'll send it right to me!

Psh. One show sent me an email that said "we don't send original copies to actors" whereas the other one just flat out never got back to me after two straight weeks of emailing, I guess in the hopes that eventually I'll buzz off

Looks like I'm on my own with these two.

Well, nothing like shelling out four bucks on iTunes to buy an TV episode that you're featured in. But I did that for 1000 WTD, only to discover that iTunes won't let me convert the file into a format that I can edit with. Even tried to use it on crappy iMovie, still wouldn't work. Bought iSkysoft Converter. Won't work. The episode is just sitting on my computer, and I can't use it.

Repo doesn't even have my episode on iTunes... Crap.

As of now, I'm waiting on my Dad to try some wizardry with his DVR to see if he can get Repo off of it. Still not sure what I'm gonna do about 1000 WTD.

You know what the funny part is? Once I actually have all the footage, stringing it all together into a rough cut will take fifteen minutes, tops.

Making a Reel: Hunting for Footage

"Do you have a good reel?"

It's a question that always makes me squirm. "Er... I'm working on it," I'll mutter. Then the person will inevitably smile politely and say something like "Oh, I see" before changing the subject. It's the one big chink in my armor that still exposes me as an unprofessional boob.

To be fair, not every new actor in LA needs a reel the first day they get here. When I arrived last October nobody had filmed me in anything besides the occasional home video shot by mommy and daddy.

Casting directors will not be impressed.

So the first task of a befuddled LA actor who's trying to make a reel is to get cast in things. But wait, don't I need a reel to get cast? Well, yes. Shut up. 

Do crap for free. If you think you're getting good material out of it, whore that talent of yours out to any pimply college kid who comes your way. Then ruthlessly forget his name after you get your first Oscar nod.

I'm at a place in my career where I've shot enough solid material though, so I've run out of excuses. 

I now have to embark on a giant email quest to actually obtain a copy of everything. You can't just rip stuff straight off of Youtube, alas. It's a lot of "Hi! Remember me?" (They probably don't.) "Could you take some time out of your super busy day to send me that piece I did for you awhile back?"

Most of these people I haven't talked to in months. And from what I hear there's always that one guy who I'll have to pester twenty thousand times until his only choice is to either give me what I want or rip his own eyeballs out in annoyance. 

But I gotta do what I gotta do. A good reel will open doors for me in ways that a headshot can't. I'll keep you guys posted on my process and would appreciate any advice from you veterans out there. Soon I'll be able to answer "Do you have a good reel?" with "Heck yeah I do! And it's better than yours, dummy!"

Or something like that.