Who does showreels any more?

[Peter Rush]

Well I've been saving footage of some of my favourite weddings from last season with a view to making a showreel but the thought of trawling through all that footage (about 3TB) again is pretty much putting me off doing it.

In hindsight I should have separated out clips that i wanted to keep as I went along but you know what it's like in the middle of a busy season!

I nearly always produce a mini-highlights of the wedding the week after filming for my blog, and lately have just been showing these to prospective customers and they love them - maybe that's enough?

Pete

[James Manford]

What is a showreel? just another excuse to show off your editing and breath-taking clips.

That's it.

Will it really bring in more customers? that's a mystery isn't it ...

If you're happy with the rate of inquiries you're getting/amount of customers, leave it out. If not, go through with the grueling process and get something made to pull in customers.

[David Barnett]

I'm actually in the same process as you Pete. Luckily, while I didn't seperate the best shots of each wedding out, I kinda did in my mind. So when I see a bride I recall, 'Oh yeah they had a packed dance floor', or 'the photog had great formal session'.

Admittedly though as I edit it together, it's a bit of a challenge to avoid confusion of 'who the heck is getting married here' as brides & grooms keep changing, multiple bridesmaids dresses, various settings & locations. I'm sure viewers figure it out, that it's not 1 wedding, but tbh I think the individual wedding highlights work just as well. Not sure what I'm going to do about all the vows, probably just use the best one I find. Seems to be a bit of a task doing this all, but it's slow, and I should have some free time the next few weeks.

IMHO if it seems too much of a task for you at this point, I would just keep using the highlights your showing. I don't think you "need" a compilation trailer.

[Robert Benda]

For weddings, not a fan of showreels, per se. I like to post a few shorter, easy to watch trailers, and have three wedding films (15-20 minutes) on the website so they can see what we actually deliver.

For me a showreel would be about non-wedding work, OR, to showcase OTHER vendors and pass that footage along to them. For instance, you could put together a great two minutes for a MC/DJ or a venue that you allow them to use in their advertising (with client permission, of course). You ask for nothing in return, you're just being friendly, but it's a great way to network.

[Peter Riding]

I think showreels time has passed now that its practical to showcase multiple videos online. Before that was possible then certainly it was a good choice compared to sending prospective clients a stack of individual DVDs of weddings.

This is also a very common question in the stills world - newbies often ask if they should make one compilation album rather than pay a lot of money for multiple samples from several weddings. The answer is always a resounding no - don't do compilations. The reason is that most brides attach a lot of importance to being able to browse complete weddings rather than greatest hits - and quite rightly. If what you have to show appears to be quite limited in quantity then suspicions are raised. Now that that is possible in the video world go for it.

The one exception tends to be that some photographers make up year books for want of a better expression. One image per wedding from the year. The subtext of this is that you are saying to the bride "look how busy I am" and that brings with it extra credibility because so many other clients are seen to have chosen you. But of course you do have to be busy. The opposite approach is to state that you are very selective and limit yourself to X number of weddings per year; which is another way of saying you can't get any clients ..... but I digress :- )

I've always batch-renamed all my video clips in Adobe Bridge at an early stage with names specific to that client and to which part of the day and with an ascending prefix so that should I ever want to yank a bunch of sundry clips out to make a compilation then it would be easier than trying to work with the out of the camera filenames.

Forget about the showreel and just supply a bunch of highlights per wedding; that will be seen as far more useful and valuable.

And have a few long-form available if you do them. Its not that big a deal to upload a 45-75 minute video of a full ceremony to vimeo. That would also protect you from clients who might otherwise perceive that a long-form looks exactly the same as a short-form only 15x longer :- )

Pete

[Steve Bleasdale]

Peter I do a show reel every year this was my last one and am in the middle of a new dramatic one, it always helps bookings. Steve

Highlights Show Reel... on Vimeo

[Nigel Barker]

A showreel with all the eye-catching best bits is useful if you do wedding shows.

[Steven Digges]

For any of you that have the footage and talent to put together something as good as Steve's example above it would be silly not to do it! Good stuff!

But that is coming from a guy whose website is down and whose show reel is sitting on terabytes of hard drive space in it's original raw format :)

Steve

[Steve Bleasdale]

Cheers Steven thanks for your kind comments. steve