Okay, so now I’m casting a very cool short film for Comedy Central and Atom.com (yes, it’s already been a crazy busy year — indie production flow is BACK on track. Woo hoo!) and as I tweeted Friday afternoon, finding actor demo reels was becoming frustratingly challenging.

Just spent two hours trying to find 15 actors’ demo reels online for producers. THREE actors made it *very* easy. The rest… *tsk* *tsk*

Well, so many actors replied to that tweet (some, to promote how easy their reels are to find — which is awesome, but my point was that the specific actors whose reels I was seeking out were not so easy to find) with questions that I decided to bring the answers here, where I’m not constricted by 140 characters. 😉

So, what makes it “easy” to find a particular actor’s reel?

Googleability. If nothing else, we should be able to plop your name into Google, add the word “reel” to the search, and be presented with several options within the first page. If your name is quite common, all the more important that your reel be in even easier-to-find places.

What’s “easier”?

A reel attached to your profile at Actors Access, IMDb, LA Casting, wherever your target buyers would be poking around. I guess technically, a reel at any of those places should show up fairly high in a Google search too, as would a reel posted at YouTube or even your personal website. And if all we’re finding is your reel from 2007, that’s not helping much either.

So, the point is, have your reel up. Online. Findable. Shareable, when a casting director is trying to show a producer or director your work, to help convince them that you’d be a good fit for the role, even before we’re holding sessions (or if we’re holding sessions at all).

One of my favorite reply tweets on this topic, Friday, came from casting legend Marci Liroff, who really put things in perspective for me, about how quickly “times have changed” on this issue.

back in the ‘old days’-3 yrs. ago(!)I would rent their movies & rip the footage and edit a demo 2 show my director & studio.

Wow. Things move so quickly now, and we’re so accustomed to having access to your materials, that this “old days” system would take far too long for many projects. We’re now turning around links to priority actors’ reels in a number of hours, not a work day (or longer). But I was so glad that Marci reminded of this old system, because it made me recall the most recent meeting in which I showcased actors’ reels all edited (by me) onto one VHS cassette for producers on a feature film. In 2006. Since then, it has always been about shooting producers links to actors’ footage online.

But the need to show your footage to the buyers is not new. The delivery method is. And the easier you make it for us to grab your goodies and share them, the better.

As Edward DeRuiter said, in this discussion on Twitter:

1. Post reel to YouTube. 2. Get a website (many are free). 3. Embed reel to website. www.edwardderuiter.com/reel.html.

Cate Carson asked a good clarifying question:

finding demo reels? Should be on home page of website or can have its own page with a clear menu tab?

The answer to that is: It doesn’t really matter if the reel is on your site’s main page or featured on another page within your site’s structure, as long as it’s EASY to find. And that means, when we’re not at your site, we can easily find our way there. And then once we’re on your site, we don’t have to go digging for your footage.

I want to make a note here about how disconcerting it is when we go looking for your demo reel because you have a dozen guest stars and lots of feature film work listed on your resumé only to find that there is zero footage. Casting director Laurie Records even tweeted about that issue last week:

*actors* when you have 15+ films (etc.) listed on your resumé, but no reel… I get confused.

What that “lack of reel” screams more than anything else is a disingenuous promotion of your credits on your resumé. Sure, we know you can’t get tape sometimes, but if you have zero tape juxtaposed against buttloads of credits, we start to doubt the veracity of everything on your resumé. And that doesn’t help you.

Bottom line: Get your footage, have a great reel, make it findable! Include it with any submission you do, if encouraged to do so. Google yourself to be sure your footage is findable. If you have to poke around to get to it, consider that we may not make so much effort. Make it easy. We’re trying to cast you.


Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!


Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001304.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.

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