SHOWREEL ASSESSMENT SAMPLES

Show Reel Assessment – Basic

Dear Janet,

Your Show Reel has been assessed and although the performance aspect of the selections is generally quite good the technical quality is not so good on some scenes.

For that reason we suggest:-

• Deleting segments three (with the cat), four (in the garden) and five (singing at the piano)
  
• Segment six is OK but it doesn’t have a strong end
  
• Find a short piece of music (8 - 10secs duration) with a natural end and run that over a caption or photo of yourself to end the reel.

This will make your Show Reel much shorter but at least people won't turn it off in frustration.

Best wishes,

Richard.

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Show Reel Assessment – Intermediate

Dear Sven,

We have assessed your show reel and feel its is in quite good shape. However your opening photo is rather dull - it feels like a fairly ordinary headshot which no special effort has been put into. If you don’t have access to a better full colour photo try using strongly coloured lettering and key your name across it to give it a bit more life or alternatively use a frozen frame of that great action shot in segment three. If all that is too hard, simply open with your first segment which is a good scene and it is very plain that you are the one we are meant to be looking at.

Segments two and three are also good choices but you could try ending segment two after the first kiss. The scene doesn’t develop any further after that point and it would take 20 seconds off your overall running time. This would keep things moving and help to hold your audiences’ interest.

Segment Four should be dropped. Its sound and picture quality are poor and even though the costume is great the performance is not your best. It looks as if this sequence is quite an old one and your acting skills have obviously improved since then. Anyway this deletion will bring your Show Reel down to a sensible running length and still display your abilities well.

We suggest reversing the order of segments five and six. Segment six is very short and ‘punchy’ and we feel segment five makes a good end to the reel.

Good luck.

Regards,

Richard.

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Show Reel Assessment – Superior

Dear Paul,

Thank you for submitting your Show Reel to The Rehearsal Room for an Superior Assessment. I think you have done well. Your reel is of appropriate duration and the content seems to give a good indication of your work. You have also obviously been successful in acquiring professional television employment for a number of your selected segments are evidently professionally produced and recorded of air.

All these aspects assist in promoting you, for obviously if you have professional credits this means that someone has already hired you for a role and others should be confident that they could do the same.

The technical and performance aspects of your reel are perfectly satisfactory. Your opening still photo is a beauty. It has engaging warmth and portrays you as a good looking and charming young man. It is a very good start.

The four segments which follow, although they are from the same show, provide a good cross section of your performance skills as they all reveal slightly different aspects of your performance and character. They are also fairly short and therefore achieve these goals quickly and efficiently. The fifth and sixth segments which demonstrate your skills as a presenter are unfortunately a little repetitive. The first one of these (i.e. the fifth segment), where you crawl through the pipe in a children’s playground is interesting because it is a very good shot – an unusual angle for camera and an unusual action for you – but it is not a very good piece of writing so it doesn’t serve you well. In fact I don’t understand what the content of this piece to camera is about - so it undermines the quality of the rest reel. It also contains a small stumble in your delivery. I would definitely delete this segment. You could use a frozen frame of it at the end of the reel to super your details over if you really are keen to include this visual.

The other scene (sixth segment) in which you also fulfill the ‘presenter role’ is fine. In that segment you are charming, energetic and engaging. We like you and want to go with you to see what it is you have to show us. Because you are also a bit cheeky in this scene we suspect that although the things you are leading us to may be ‘educational’ in nature they also should be fun. This piece works so well for you that I would not worry at all about dropping the preceding one.

Overall your performance in the television serial shows promise. You seem determined to play an energetic and likable character and this is largely successful in broad terms. The areas that need development relate to the fact that sometimes the choice to be energetic seems to be imposed by the actor rather than it emerging from the character deciding for a relevant reason at the time that he would like to have fun. This inhibits your ability to truthfully respond to the impulses of the moment for often it appears you have already made up your mind how you are going to respond.

This approach to acting process effects lots of small elements of the performance, such as:-

• The truthfulness of the listening
• The actual engagement between characters
• A reduction in the complexity of the character
• The opportunity for something new to emerge

It may feel adventurous and dangerous to you but in fact the audience is seeing some of the actors choices at work when in fact they only want to see the character’s choices. In addition rather than been bold and adventurous it can become limiting/confining and predictable, for often under these circumstances there is only room for conscious actor manipulation and no room for unconscious spontaneous interaction – which I suspect is really the ingredient which you are seeking.

So there is evidently a slight imbalance in your process that is worth exploring. You maybe need to find a teacher who can help you develop in this area. Your aim should be to,

• Open up your listening
• Relax your control a little over exactly what might happen next
• Allow your character’s “need”, intention or objective to guide your choices in the moment
• And perhaps not be so keen to be noticed.

Overall however this is a good Show Reel containing the work of a promising performer.

Good luck.

And keep working.

Regards,

Richard Sarell

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