ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years, 9 months ago - Carmina Bernhardt

Peter: I certainly wasn't pinning my argument on 'War Horse'! Yikes! I was merely using the example of an unknown actor who shot his own reel to a high standard, landed an interview with a top agent with the contacts to get him cast in big budget feature films and then getting signed by that agent. As I said, acting is subjective (and in this case, it seems we share the subjective opinion of 'War Horse'). ;)

10 years, 10 months ago - George Ian Cullen

If you haven't made a decision yet contact me on cullenian@btinternet.com

10 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

A showreel needs to show you in a range of roles, characters, settings and moods. The quality of the filming is secondary to the quality of the performance. If you can get into a bunch of shorts acting for free (there are no end of posts on this site for cast), you can get showreel material that way - in a range of roles, characters, settings and moods, and mountains cheaper than commissioning your own shoot!

10 years, 10 months ago - Alève Mine

I'll join Carmina on this. The idea that professionals at any level actually see past a low production quality (sound, image and communication) is romantic.

10 years, 10 months ago - Carmina Bernhardt

I disagree. Of course good acting is imperative, but it's also subjective. What isn't subjective is a fine quality product. Case study: the actor that played the lead in Spielberg's War Horse got his top tier agent because he shot really good quality scenes with his filmmaking buddy. The agent thought that the actor had already built a good list of credits by the quality of the scenes on his showreel. He found out after signing him that those scenes weren't actually from film and tele!

10 years, 10 months ago - Daniel Johnson

Hey Fiona. I shoot showreels for actors. Have a good success rate in terms of the reels helping actors go on to get agents, roles, etc - if you email me I can show you some more examples and case study's of my own clients :D Here's some more info anyhow, along with showreel examples and a showreel of my showreels! http://www.danieljohnsonfilms.co.uk/showreels

10 years, 10 months ago - Marlom Tander

I second what Paddy said. Good acting can shine through almost any production values. (Except bad sound. Get the sound right).

In fact, the better you do your job, the less anything else on screen matters :-)

10 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

By all means spend proper money on getting proper production values, but be smart about it. If you're commissioning a showreel piece, you have to bear 100% of the cost of a full production. This is not cheap, but if you have (maybe tens of) thousands of pounds to spend, well it's your money.

Just if you do have that kind of money to spend, why not gear that investment by buying your way into someone else's project? Want to be known as a features actress? Turn up with £000's in real cash and I'll guarantee you a speaking role in a distributed feature, IMDB credit, all the stuff you want. £0,000's and it'll be guaranteed scenes opposite named talent. Reality of showbusiness - it's show business, it's mercenary, it takes real money and will take it from anywhere. Might be a more cost-effective way of buying some quality showreel material than fronting the whole cost for unproven value.

10 years, 9 months ago - Catherine Hearne

Have a look at www.slickshowreels.co.uk X

10 years, 10 months ago - Peter Ward

"War Horse" hardly seems like the most noteworthy film one can think of. On the other hand, the point is (perhaps not quite in the way intended) valid--the people spending the big bucks are more worried about gloss than substance.

10 years, 9 months ago - Daniel Johnson

Slick have done some very good reels - I'm a fan of them.

10 years, 10 months ago - Hayley Riby

Look no further...

Www.broadviewfilms.com

We write scenes specific to your casting type.