Showreel 2016

   I made a little update to last year's showreel, aside from taking out a couple of old stuff and adding in some new stuff from this year and last year, I also made a few graphic tweaks. The opening and ending title cards have been reversed, with the opening one now being white and the closing one being black (Not a particularly important change but it was just a little detail that I liked and wanted to make). 

   The music has also been changed to HOME's "Resonance" (Who I was fortunately able to get a very prompt a friendly response from when asking for permission to use it!). In terms of the arrangement of clips themselves, while it has always been advised that with start with our best works... In a way, I simply followed my heart and went along with what felt right whilst listening to the song itself, playing around the music over and over whilst moving them about. And referring back to some of the showreel examples that I had written about in the previous year, I have also added in a few character and background designs in there as well. While I had wanted to make two separate showreels, I believe that I will need more work in both areas before I can actually do just that. 

   Seeing that we will be presenting our showreels in class tomorrow, hopefully I will get some helpful feedback on what should be removed and what parts should be rearranged.

Showreel Examples

Below are a few showreel examples that I referred to as I was putting mine together (Aside from the advice/guide videos that were provided on the eStudio that is).

Madhura Keiji decided to include most if not all of his works for his first year showreel, while some works are indeed impressive, it seems a little unnecessary for him to include everything that he has. Still, a lot of thought was definitely put into how this showreel was presented (Especially for the opening and closing) and in some of the stills that were shown. As suggested in the comment section, if he simply focused more on the absolute best works he had, it would be a near perfect showreel.

All of his contact details are provided at the very end, including his emails and phone number, as well as what software he used for the examples that were shown in the showreel.

Tony Moore's incredibly impressive reel lasts only around a minute, but is still able to create a strong enough impression on the audience. Clearly, he has only picked out the very best bits and if possible, tries to give some variety in that one area the showreel is focusing on (Some live action was actually shown in there. 

Helpful and precise information was also shown throughout, such as his contact details at the beginning and end, and briefly what each animation was actually about (And what it was exactly that he had worked on in that scene).

Gemma Robert's showreel focuses on a wide variety of 2D hand drawn character animations, clips are split up and spread out throughout instead of being shown as one entire thing (Something that I myself have also done while editting). Animation tests are also included alongside more finished products (Something which I was afraid about including in my own showreel). It is a tiny bit lengthy, but the amazing variety and quality works clearly make up for that and will most definitely impress anyone that views it.

Despite how I would place all my still works in my portfolio, I was curious about how they would be presented in a showreel. And so I decided to look up examples on those two aside form animation showreels. 

Soumyadip Sarkar's showreel focuses on character design, concept art, storyboards, comics and  strangely enough clay sculptures(And even shows both coloured and uncoloured versions for some of his works). It was a little too lengthy and a lot of examples were given, but it is understandable to include more content for a showreel focusing on still images as compared to one focusing on animation. It looks to me as if he is including every area he specialises in for this showreel instead of just one.

Gareth Jones seems to take his storyboard showreel a step further and makes use of some camera animation for single frames and simply makes everything else into animatics. He seems to also show only some of the more outstanding scenes from these storyboards instead of simply showing the entire thing. Even a single frame from a storyboard can be presented if there are some interesting shooting details placed alongside it.

Showreel

Showreel from Rebecca Wong on Vimeo.

I started putting together my showreel over the last few days and I was thankful to learn that I did have a few decent works to pick from to put in there (It really pays to give it your all for every single assignment you do, despite the chest pains that is). As I started putting it altogether, I kept reminding myself about two important things, to show only my best possible works and not to make it too long, a piece of advice that has practically been given in all the talks I attended and the advice videos I watched.

While I was initially going to insert my Pixilation and Maya animations in there, they just did not seem to fit with the rest of the 2D animations that were already in there. And unfortunately, it did not seem right to insert the animation sketches that I have done for my Applied Animation 2 project in there either (Seeing that they were both unfinished and did not seem to fit with the rest of the pieces I had already put in, and if I was to show off the lip syncing, it would probably be better to put it into another showreel), I would however later on insert other works from that module into my portfolio.

Despite the fact that nearly everything was done only in Photoshop and After Effects, I did wish to show more of my drawing skills and how I could work on all sorts of genres (Children, horror, humour etc.). And so my Pixilation and Maya animations just would not belong in any part of this showreel.

I ended up using "Sleep Scape" by Aura Distorter, a song that I found through SampleSwap, I immediately contacted the artist in hopes of getting his permission. I am still waiting on a response, but I am sure that I can use it since it will be for non-profitable purposes.

I started splitting the animations into several clips and started spreading them about when editing, in hopes of getting my works to sync better with the music that played. There were also some weaker parts that definitely had to be cut out, and seeing that it would be weird to put the cut up animations side by side, it was better to separate and spread them apart.

This is my first showreel and I hope it will catch the interests of some folks... I definitely do have to start working on some new material.