Showreel Practice Session

During this week's session, we were tasked with finding ten images from work that inspires us as animators, and placing them within a timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro. The resulting footage lasted around 2 minutes. We then adjusted the timing of each image/removed images from the timeline where necessary in order to crop the video down to only 45 seconds. Below is the piece I produced during the session:

This task highlighted how selective one needs to be when compiling a showreel; particularly in terms of selecting only the best pieces of work, and having them last for just the right amount of time. I found it helpful to carry out such a task using images from other people's work as I found myself being less sentimental as I may have been about removing large segments of my own work from the timeline in order to crop the piece down to showreel length. I also learned the importance of shot placement in a showreel. Initially I had placed all my shots almost at random across the timeline, however we were later told to arrange our footage so that the strongest shots were placed at the beginning and end of our showreels. The effect of this change is that the piece is able to hold the viewers' attention for much longer (if the piece begins on a poor piece of work, viewers are likely to stop watching faster) and leave viewers on a positive note.

I will be preparing a draft of my completed animation showreel for next week.