Showreels
A portion of my Professional Practise classes revolved around showreels, and showreel design. We discussed what aspects of visual and sound editing, design and content orders made an interesting and professional looking reel, and so I looked into some experienced 3D artists on ArtStation to see how they presented their work. There isn’t much on what these artists used to edit their videos, but I imagine they would just use After Effects or Premiere Pro.
Aurélie Duret
Duret is primarily a character FX and Groom artist, although she also shows her skills in design, texturing and modelling. Duret appears to currently work at Framestore, as a junior CFX artist.
The editing in this reel has to be my favourite of the 4; I especially like the incorporation of the rendered and progress shots side by side, the way she set up the character turnaround, and the opening title card! I quite like the fade-in of black to shot, and the kinetic typography of the title. The title card’s text is also different font sizes and in different formats (bold, italic), which I really like as well. I also thought the top and bottom borders, where the title of the animation is and what Duret did in the shot, was a nice touch.
The music timing is also nice, the sound is quite neutral and lines up well with certain points in the reel, and I thought the music volume editing around the lip-sync shot was a good idea.
I think the only thing I would personally criticise is how fast the first scene goes, but she clearly has a lot to show! I think it would have also been good to have the character Duret made fully by herself closer to the beginning of the reel, but perhaps she didn’t believe it to be her best work.
Ina Carolina
Ina is a very talented character modeller and illustrator, based in Brazil, and her work is among my favourites! This reel is a specialised character modelling showcase, although she does not appear to be working with a company at the moment, and does a lot of freelance stuff.
Ina’s title card looks very professional, I like that she has all of her information available at the beginning. I also really like her name design here, though it seems like a small aspect of the reel I feel like it adds a lot to the title. I think the repeat of the title card, with bigger text, in the end, is also a good idea.
Again, I like that Ina showed both the finished renders and a turnaround of the wireframe, plus any other related material. She also includes separate title frames for each of the models, which I think breaks up the reel in a good way. The little icons of the programs she used in the bottom left corner are a very nice touch as well, I love this design she has gone with.
However, there is no music! In this case, as she is showcasing her models all with the same length of time, I believe this is fine, but for my own, I will probably add music to sync to.
Ruth Taylor
Ruth is a commercial animator based in Amsterdam, she does this freelance but often works on personal projects as well.
Again, Ruth’s opening title stands out a lot for its animated logo, which looks very professional. It also has a clip in the background, which is a design choice I really like (but I do not know if I would even have anything for an opening) and I believe she chose this clip purposely as there isn’t a lot happening on screen, and so isn’t distracting. However, there aren’t any contact details in the reel! It may have been nice to add her email at the bottom of the beginning logo.
Like the other reels, Ruth shows more text on screen over every clip which captions what she did in each project, though I think maybe having the captions slightly offset from the clips would have been interesting! She spends a good time on each clip, and comes back to the same ones; something I probably will have to do since I don’t have much to show! There is nothing too interesting with the editing itself, like Aurélie’s, but it is clean and professional.
In terms of the editing with the music, there is clear editing to the beat of the music and this is especially apparent at the 30-second mark where the music picks up and she shows a personal animation that fits well with the heavier sound, I thought this was the best part! The music also begins to slow and fade near the end which is nifty, it begins to end on a fitting clip of a guitarist where the camera pans downwards, I think this is a very pleasant ending.
Cristina Zoica Dumitru
Cristina is a digital art instructor and educational coach. She has professional experience as an Academic Leader, University Lecturer, Studio Instructor and Digital Artist in Interactive Media. She coaches artists who are wanting to enter into the creative industries, or those wanting to learn a new skill.
Cristina’s title card is much more plain than the other 3, with the text just appearing out of an invisible barrier, but it still has a sharp look to it, although I feel like it could have been shortened. There’s a nice fade out at the end too, for the end card, where she adds her email address; though I personally prefer the details at the beginning. Although she does not detail what aspects of the clips she made (though for some I imagine it’s all, as she seems to have experience in all areas) I like that she gave the title of the clips, and the animation of the captions is quite pleasant.
She uses a fade transition for each clip, which I think is nicer than a sharp transition. All of her clips sync up really well with the music beats and is satisfying to watch! She mostly uses the primary beat as an indicator for when to switch the clip. She also keeps in the sound effects from the actual clip which is nice and lowers the volume of the background music for these.
Designing a Reel
In our professional practice class, we went over some pointers on how to layout a good showreel, from title cards to music choice, to clip editing and ordering.
Title Cards
- Firstly, the title card should show your name, and your profession or specialities; like character animation, special effects, (2D/3D) generalist etc, first and foremost. Most reels I saw from those on ArtStation and from the class presentation also have their email address, a URL to their ArtStation portfolio and sometimes their phone number closer to the bottom of the title card. Some reels I watched had their contact info at the closing title instead, but some tips we were given was to keep this info at the beginning; not all employers will watch the whole showreel! Title cards should stay clean and professional, but can still be interesting.
Music
- Some showreels I watched on ArtStation have music, some do not. Those that don’t often are modelling reels, and so wouldn’t need the aid of the music to edit to as the turnarounds would most likely all share the same time being showcased. Those that do have music, have royalty-free sounds found from websites like Bensound, Free Music Archive or Chosic and are used to help the edit the clips to sync with the music beats. It is best to choose something with clear beats but with a neutral sound so that it’s not annoying for viewers. The reel should be able to be watched with and without music! If there is dialogue, one thing I liked from seeing the other showreels was how they lowered the music volume so the dialogue can be clearly heard, but still, continue the music in the background so as not to disrupt the flow. I have no dialogue pieces so I wouldn’t have to worry about this!
Editing
- Most of the showreels I watched had a fade-in, and a fade-out; I think this looks quite professional and begins and ends the reel more cleanly. The benefit of having music in the reel is that you can edit the clips to the beat of the song, often this is just to aid the editor! In some of the reels I found on ArtStation there were fancier editing techniques, like diagonal transitions and kinetic typography, which really add to the professionalism. I think I will try to incorporate these kinds of techniques into my own. Another thing I noticed on some of the reels is the addition of text on some of the clips detailing the programs used, the others involved, the clip’s title and what the person did in the clip (lightning, animation, groom etc), and I think this is also a good idea to have in the reel.
- Finally, when it comes to ordering the clips in the reel I was told that the best work should be in the beginning. My reel will most likely only be around 30 seconds to 1 minute long, so I should have my best work in the beginning and this includes 2D animation, 3D animation, model turnarounds, and I could probably even add in one of my portfolio artworks with its time-lapse. From our classes, we were told that works in progress should be kept to a minimum, so I may not add in my wall/run/body mechanics animations as they are not finished. I may however add in some progress shots with the finished piece, either beside or after it, like I saw in some of the other reels. I feel like it would be important for some employers to see the progress, like the wireframes and the sketches.
My personal favourite things I’ve done, that I will add to the reel would be my latest models for assignment 1 (a haunted mansion), last year’s 3D animation (walker and group work) and some of my art time lapses. I also have some 2D animation, from last year and a few years ago which I may include as well.
Most showreels are posted on Vimeo, as I found from my research, and for my own assignment, I will add an embedded link in the CV PDF to my profile.
My Showreel
I actually really enjoyed editing this reel, of course there is a lot that could be improved but I thankfully got the hang of premiere pro and the process wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be!
I found a few nice title graphics online for free, so I used these for the opening and closing title card. I wish I could have designed the title card a bit nicer, maybe with an illustration or more fun text animations but I still think this looks good and clean.
Showreel 2021 from Megan McColm on Vimeo.
Portfolios
Most people in artistic industries use ArtStation for portfolios, some I found there that I particularly liked were Daniel Mendo’s (character designer), Vanessa Morales’ (illustrator), Oana Siserman’s (toy designer), and Ruth Taylor’s (animator and illustrator). I have been very interested in 3D, so Ruth and Oana’s pages stood out the most to me. All of them have very unique styles and specialise in areas I have been interested in. I liked the mix of 2D and 3D on ArtStation (Ruth Taylor’s page has both), and I think for my own portfolio I will try to have as much range as I can.
When I made my own portfolio on ArtStation, I looked through all of my artwork so far and picked out what 10 I believe to be the best, some are even from a few years ago! Although I am more experienced with toony art, my realism is what I think is my best work; one of my favourite cartoony pieces even has a more realistic background, probably why I like it so much. I also have some semi-realistic digital paintings that I just think look better than my full toon art.
However, even though I believe my portfolio showcases a range of techniques, programs, and styles; this may be a problem. Art styles can be very important in job searching; more uniqueness in styles means recognisability. With over 7 years of experience now with digital art, be it commission work for those in fandoms, classwork or my few professional artworks, I should have been able to build a style. Styles can be lineart, colouring, general form, etc. and while I do have certain things that I always include in my workflow, I believe one of my goals should be to develop a professional art style and continue to build my skills.
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