For this part of the week I was instructed to look at examples of showreels and analyse them to see what I need to do and not do for when I am presenting my work to potential employees in the animation industry.

Showreel 1

For the first showreel that I looked at, was one made by SleepyGrim. They are an animation student who had to create their first ever showreel. Before, I began looking at her showreel, I immediately had to look if they had any social media and indeed there were 3 social medias which they had:

Twitter: SleepyGrim (@_SleepyGrim_) / Twitter

Instagram The witch (@sleepygrim) • Instagram photos and videos

DeviantArt  SleepyGrim – Student, Digital Artist | DeviantArt

Looking at some of their art, it seems to be a lot of fantasy drawings of their ocs, usually character designs and a bit of character interaction.

Anyway, onto the showreel.

The showreel itself its short and straight to the point as it features a lot of character animation doing things like walking, running, dancing alongside a closeup shot of a kitchen counter with a hand picking up a salt shaker. A lot of these animations feel more like sketches and have a very desaturated and monochrome feel to them as it uses lots of brown. While it is pleasing to look at this animation, I wish there was definitely a lot more variation in colour. Also another thing is that a lot of the animations seems to not have different points of perspective to demonstrate the range of their animation. However, What I did like was the music choice as it didn’t take away from the showreel.

Overall I really like this one due to its unique style and charm, however would have loved to see some variety to the animations.

Showreel 2

Next showreel is made by Kieran Sugrue. This one is an older showreel by the person. However I wanted to show this one because it has the opposite good and bads of how a showreel should be.

Firstly, Kieran has two social medias and his own website. Here are the links to them:

Newgrounds Kieran-s (newgrounds.com)

Tumbler Kieran Sugrue (tumblr.com)

His website Ghost Squad Comic

When viewing his drawings, they have this very strange and bizarre style to them that makes it oddly satisfying and interesting to look at. It reminds me of things like a Regular Show and SuperJail where the characters looks a bit odd but interesting. Here are a few examples

Looking at his showreel, the best about is the different animations that he has created using different colour pallets which make it pleasing to the eye and shows a great understanding of timing and movement of characters on the screen. However the showreel is very short and doesn’t allow you to digest/process what has happened on the screen even if the quality of animation is good. Also the choice of music is very bizzare and annoying. I can understand what the artist was trying to do as he was trying to match with his style, however it ended up being distracting and not helping the person concentrate on what’s going on.

Overall very interesting style but the music and the shortness of the animation takes away from the pleasant viewing experience.

Conclusion

By doing this task, I feel like I have learned what to and not do when it comes to the animation, whether it maybe presentation wise or sound wise. I am really thankful I did this and I hope I will apply this to my showreel.