5 Keys to an Awesome Animated Demo Reel
As a videographer, you know that your demo reel is the best way to show off your skills to potential clients. It can serve as a testament to your creativity, your flexibility, and the quality of the work that you produce. However, not all video demo reels are created alike, and it would be unwise to use the same techniques to craft your live action and animated demo reel. To help you win that next big animation client, we’ve put together a handy list of things to consider when preparing your animated demo reel.
Showcase your Flexibility
One of the most important qualities you want your clients to believe you have is flexibility. A potential client hopes to develop a relationship with one vendor to suit their diverse video needs. Therefore, you want to show potential customers that you have the talent to suit all of their animated video requirements. Prove your flexibility by showcasing different animation styles. Common animation types include 3D, 2D, Fast Draw, Stop-Motion, and others. Your animated demo reel will be far more effective if you can feature the many different types of animation you’ve used in past client videos.
If you haven’t done a wide variety of video types, consider creating a series of look samples to show that your expertise in many different video types, even if you only use that content for sales purposes.
Feature your Stars
Be sure to leverage recognizable content in your animated demo reel. For example, if your company did an animated commercial that went viral online, be sure to highlight this video. Put it at the start of your animated demo reel, and use long cuts to ensure that the potential client recognizes the video. Potential clients will be reassured that your video content is top-quality, and will help them to achieve their goals. Remember that to your audience, popularity is closely tied to success, so be sure to use your most popular and recognizable content.
Pick the Music Carefully
Music is a key aspect of the videos that you craft for your clients. It is no less significant in your animated demo reel. Moreover, while it is usually very simple to identify what tone you are trying to convey in a typical animated video, it can be quite challenging with a video reel. Because it features many different types of content from many different videos, the clips in your animated demo reel will lend themselves to very different types of music. Therefore, you should focus on trying to craft a tone with your music that makes your potential clients feel the way that you want them to while viewing the demo reel.
Typically, the tone of an animated demo reel is exciting. Sure, you want your audience to be impressed by your creativity, flexibility, and talent. But you also want to make them excited at the prospect of working with you and your creative team. As such, many animated video reels feature upbeat music that, combined with well-crafted video cuts, makes the viewers’ hearts pound.
Highlight Trendy Video Styles
Video styles, like fashion, are subject to trends. Sometimes a new way of presenting a video spreads like wildfire and becomes pervasive in video content. Clients often want to produce their own video with this content style as a sort of “me too” syndrome. One great example of this can be seen in the recently-expired Fast Draw video fad. Fast draw was originally recognized as a prime video animation form for explaining or teaching the audience on any subject. However, Fast Draw’s simplicity appealed to audiences of all kinds, and all kinds of video production clients were clamoring to have their own Fast Draw video. In light of this example, it can be valuable to your animated demo reel to show that you have experience working with trendy animation styles.
Refresh your Animated Demo Reel Regularly
As you continually finish bigger and better animated video projects, it’s important to harness your improved skills by producing new animated demo reels. This relates to the above point about harnessing trendy video styles. You should be sure to update your animated demo reel frequently, and include content from your new and exciting productions. It is not uncommon to produce a new reel once a year. For such an important sales and marketing tool, it is beyond worth the work it takes to regularly update your animated demo reel to best showcase your production team’s talents!
Have any other tips on creating a successful animated demo reel? Please comment below!
