Next demo reel shoot is June 5, Tuesday, with afternoon and evening times available. Go to the SFilms store to register.
The actor demo reel has become extremely important for getting auditions and landing roles. Often times, actors work for little or nothing to get the resume credit and to get a scene or something they can drop into their reel. But time and time again, actors would talk with me about not being able to get the filmmaker to send them the scene to use. The filmmaker just wouldn’t have time or resource.
So at that point, I decided to help out the actors– what if we could do an original scene that looked as if ripped straight from an indie film and featured the actor the way they wanted to be featured? Of course there’s some serious cost involved– I bring a real film Director of Photography and crew along, and I use high def cinematic cameras and equipment. So I priced it as if we’re shooting for the day and split the cost between the actors, which has been $350 a person, minimum of 6 actors.
When you register, I contact you and we discuss what type of scene you need. Our goal is a kicking 20 seconds, but usually it will be 40 sec to a minute total. Everything we’ve shot is original. That’s why I need you to sign up earlier rather than later– I’m going to write it just for you. The shooting takes about 3 hours or so. And when we’re done, I usually send you a high def quicktime file in about a week.
I’ve noticed since then, there are some others now shooting demo scenes for actors– but from what I’ve watched, it’s all a glorified audition scene. Clearly staged, with locked off cameras and little to no editing or sound design. I want scenes that look like they belong in a movie. Shot with camera movement, cutting, sound design… music when needed. This is what we do. It’ high quality and a little mroe expensive. But actors need to lead with their best. Us directors aren’t going to watch much more.
But decide for yourself… checkout previous actor demos we’ve done.
Here’s one we did with teenagers Teanna Rose and Grant Griffith. Both did a great job.
