5 Powerful Ways Actors Can Create a Reel Even With No Experience

In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you 5 powerful ways actors can create an acting reel even with little to no experience. And watch this to the end. I've got a special bonus for you. It's, it's what I learned from Tom Hanks while working with him on A Man Called Otto that all actors need to hear. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share information with you about the industry, and I've been very fortunate. I've been able to make my living for the past 38 years working as a full-time actor, and it's something I really love doing. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, please click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's really helpful. And share, share this link with fellow actors. So we can continue to build a channel with actors helping each other. So I'm going to be talking about acting reels. Look, when you're first getting started, of course, you're not going to have an acting reel because you don't have any clips from projects to connect with a reel. Let me just give you just a really, really quick background about reels, and then I'm going to get into the specific 5 ways that you can create one. So do you absolutely need to have a reel? No, you certainly can get work without a reel. I did for many, many, many years. Is it helpful to have a reel? Yeah, absolutely, it's helpful. As a matter of fact, and look, I can't say this with 100% accuracy. If you have any information about this, please share it in the comment section. But from what I have been told, if you use companies like, let's say, like Actors Access, the casting directors need to filter out the submissions because there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who will be submitting per role, and they'll send in a headshot and resume. So one of the ways that they filter is they will look at people with acting reels first. I mean, to them, and this makes sense to me, they would rather Start looking at people who have more experience. So it makes sense. So that is a way that it can be really helpful to have an acting reel. If you are submitting yourself to other projects, it's helpful. If you're trying to get representation with an agent and you can send them a reel, you know, it gives you a leg up on other folks because they see that you have experience. So having a reel can be really helpful. Now, some people will have separate reels. There might be one just for TV. They might have one for film, which is what I do. They might have one for commercials. They might have one for training films. Actors also, you know, some actors do voiceover work, and if they do, they'll have a separate one for that. So anyhow, it is really, really helpful. A couple of other basic things about an acting reel. You want it to be a minute long. You don't— and I've seen people's reels that might be 2, 3, 4 minutes. You don't want that. Nobody's going to sit through a reel that long. So if you can, try to get it at a minute max. Now mine's like a minute 18. I just don't know how to edit it any differently. So, but anyhow, that is— 1 minute is the ideal time. If it's shorter, that's okay. You just don't want it to— to go on. And you also don't want really long scenes in there. These should be short clips. Now, if there's major changes that happen with your character within a scene, okay, then that makes sense. But once again, I've looked at lots of reels and it's pretty much the same thing. It's just a lot of long dialogue and that you don't want. You also want to make sure that with your reel You're not trying to show off your editing or producing talents. You know, you don't want music happening. You don't want these big fades happening with explosions going in between each sec— make it simple, really simple. I have a little slate page at the end where it has my name, my email address, it says SAG-AFTRA because I'm a member of the union, contact number if they would like to reach me. But really don't make it a real fancy schmancy kind of production because then you're going to start being viewed more as a producer and editor than an actor, and that's what you're trying to sell here. The other thing too Should you or can you use a monologue? Can you use something from a stage performance? And can you? Yeah, I guess if you have absolutely nothing else. But from all the casting directors and agents who I've talked to about this, they don't want to see that. If they are going to be submitting you for film or television, that's what they want to see. And look, and if you're— once again, if you're just getting started and you don't have enough for a separate film or a separate TV, just combine it. That's okay. Just let them see what your skills are and make sure that the focus is on you. I'm not saying you can't have other people in the scene, of course, but, you know, don't spend so much time with the other person. And if you need to edit it out so that it still makes sense and people understand what's going on, then do that. So let's get into how to create these reels even with little to no experience? Well, one of the things that you can do is contact— go online, do some research, and look at any local colleges, community colleges, universities in your area. Then what you want to do is find out who is teaching film classes, and then go and take a look and see which film classes has students shooting films for the class. Look, you don't want, you know, history of American film. That's not going to help you. You want to find students who are shooting films for the class. And then what you can do is contact the instructor and you can send a headshot and resume and say, look, I'm really interested in finding out more about some of the student films and possibly auditioning for them. And look, you might be able to do a film and it might look horrible. Maybe the student really doesn't know what they're doing and it doesn't work. That's okay. You still had a great experience, but maybe you just can't use the footage. Or I know people who've walked away with some really, really great reels and a wonderful connection with a student who maybe was the writer, maybe is the director, and starts to go on to other things. There are a number of famous actors who got started that way, just working with other students. So anyhow, contacting schools. Another way is, if you're not familiar with this, I will leave the link here so you can see it, meetup.com. And it's a really interesting company. It's free. And what you can do is go online, sign up, and then do a search and see if you can find filmmakers in your area. And what they do is they get together periodically and people talk, and you might be able to surround yourself with a lot of filmmakers. And maybe these are people who are doing independent films. This could be another great way to start getting some footage. And look, what you'll probably do, you know, once you have enough, you might have a 15, 20-second clip. You know, maybe that's it. Maybe it's 10 seconds, just something. And once again, you don't want things to just go on and on and on. Make it short, jump to the next one, and then jump to the next one. There's another organization. This one is W— well, actually, I'll leave the link for you below, but it's Women in Film and Video. You do not have to be a woman to be a part of it. It is a great organization. They have offices worldwide, and you can sign up and become a member, or you can— at least the chapter that I was involved with, I was a member for a number of years, but you can also with the one that I went to, even if you weren't a member, when they would have their meetings, you could just pay a small fee and attend the meeting. The reason why you might want to go to the meetings is because you will find a lot of industry professionals. You might find producers, you might find writers, you might find filmmakers, editors. You can find all different kinds of people, including other actors. This might be a really good way to network because they do have once again, the, the one that I went to, before they had a guest speaker, they would have networking, you know, for like an hour where you could just walk around and talk and meet other people and things like that. So Women in Film and Video, great, great, great organization. Another way of trying to find people who could be shooting projects that can help you create your reel is go on Facebook and just do a search for filmmakers. And I've done that. I've seen lots and lots of filmmaker groups and see if you can find one in your area, join. And once again, go out, network, and try to make great, great connections. Now, the 5th way. Now, this one's going to be the hardest, but some people, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, they certainly did it. Create your own project. I know you might say, well, that's— are you crazy? I can't create a film, even a 5, 10, 15-minute film. I can't do that. And maybe you can't, but if you are interested in writing, if maybe you're interested in directing and acting as well, maybe what you could do is start doing some research and connecting with people and find different people in the industry who are like-minded and want to create projects. They want to do things that are enjoyable for them, that are meaningful to them, that make a statement that they want to promote. And look, you might be able to find a director, lighting person, editor, sound people, and you could develop and create this whole Small group of people who are putting out material. Who knows, maybe you can have it running on YouTube or in other platforms, even if they are short films. But these are many, many different ways of trying to get some footage. And I had mentioned before, this is maybe 5+. I mean, there is something— they're called industrial films, educational films. And maybe— and basically they're training films, and it could be anything from a government film for the NSA, it could be a film for Parents and Teachers Association on how to properly talk to your representative about getting more funds or getting things done. It varies. It could be technical stuff. I've done things for— I mean, Probably done 400 training films, and sometimes they're really interesting. How to Build a Diesel Engine was something I shot in Chicago for the United States Navy. I don't know anything about diesel engines, but I was really good at sounding very convincing. Having teleprompters and ear prompters, that made it really easy. But anyhow, that's another way you could try to build up a reel. Now, You're not going to put that on film or TV because it's specialized, but maybe you could put together an industrial film, educational, corporate film reel, which could get you more work. So those are the 5 ways that you can try to get yourself in front of a camera and begin to build your reel. Just do it one project at a time, and if you only have You know, 20 seconds or 30 seconds of material, that's okay. Put it together and use it. At least people can see what you look like on camera, and that can be really helpful to you. Look, if you have any suggestions at all on how to create a reel, especially if you're just getting started with little to no experience, please share it in the comments below. Once again, that's the whole purpose of this channel. People helping each other. Once again, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up and share the link. I did mention I was going to share the link to this great video of essentially something that Tom Hanks taught me and said to me when I was working with him on A Man Called Otto that It really, it's something, it just, it makes so much sense and all actors need to hear this. So you can just use, just use the link up there. And yeah, I can't wait to talk with you again soon. I hope this is helpful to you. I'm Aaron Marcus. See ya.