The not demo reel

The joys of the demo reel. A 2 or 3 minute compilation of clips to showcase your awesome acting ability. Every actor needs one. Or do they? I met a guy recently who lives in my building – we kept running into each other in the gym or laundry room and inevitably this led to the “so what do you do?” convo, where we learned we are both pursuing an acting career. He asked if I’d mind taking a look at his demo reel he just put together with the help “from this sick video guy who does this for actors, you should sooo check him out!” He sent me the link and I gave it a watch.

Within 3 seconds I realized this “sick video guy” had led this poor actor astray. This was not a demo reel. This was a montage of weird clips of said actor running along the boardwalk while air punching a la Rocky, then him in a hallway brandishing a very fake-looking gun pretending to be all secret agent as he peered around doorways, then an attempt at a break dancing number…a really bad one ( bending down while screwing up your face and throwing what I guess are gang hand sign attempts is NOT break dancing), and finally a shot of him sitting on a chair and laughing out loud at something funny…maybe realizing he’s been had. In between all this “acting” words would flash across the screen – “committed” and “focused” I managed to read as they flashed pretty quickly. Oh this poor guy.

So now what? I decided to take the honest road and explained that this was not a demo reel and emailed him some examples of actual demo reels as a guideline. (Why hadn’t he done this himself??) I got back a terse “thanks for your input” reply. Haven’t seen him in the gym or laundry room. What can ya do? But it just goes to show you how actors can easily be taken advantage of if they don’t know what they are doing. People everywhere want to sell you their classes, get you to use their headshot services, edit your demo reel and everything in between. But before you hand over your hard earned cash, do yourself a favour and do some RESEARCH. I don’t know how much this “sick video guy” charged for this piece of crap but it was way too much in my opinion.