How to Make a Great Acting Sizzle Reel - 7 Essential Tips

In this video, I'm going to be teaching you how to create a great sizzle reel in 7 essential steps. This is going to help you whether you are just getting started and this is your very first sizzle reel, or if you've been working for quite some time but it's time to put together a better reel. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to my Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel where I teach people who are just getting started in the industry and want to learn how to have success, and for people who've been working in the business for quite some time and want to take their career to the next level. And don't forget, if you haven't done this yet, click the subscribe button and make sure you click the bell, the notification button, so that way every time I upload a new video, you will be notified. And if you like the video, which I certainly hope you do, Give it a thumbs up and that will help spread the word and let other people know that this video is helpful. Okay, so the very first thing is you guys need to know exactly what a sizzle reel is. Now, it's really interesting. There are 3 different names and they all mean the same thing. So there's a sizzle reel. Now, sizzle reel, it's interesting because years ago I always attached sizzle reel with people who are trying to pitch a product and they are taking their sizzle reel to producers or networks. But there are a lot of actors today who are using the term sizzle reel for their acting reel. There's also a demo reel, which means the exact same thing. And I've also heard showreel, which normally I hear that more in, in the UK, but I've also heard some American actors talk about showreels as well. But essentially what all 3 of these things do is it allows actors to share clips of their work and show it to other industry professionals, whether it's an agent you might wanting representation with, to a casting director, to a producer. It could be for, you know, anybody. But basically, it's showing some of your work and letting people see your acting skills. Number 2, what do you do if you don't have anything to place on your reel. Look, if you're just getting started, of course you don't have anything. Now, look, everything that I'm going to be sharing with you is based on my experiences. And so, look, it's— there are lots of different ways of doing things in the industry and having success. So I'm just going to be telling you what's been helpful to me, what I've learned from other industry professionals, and hopefully this will be good for you as well. So every casting director I have ever talked to said, I don't want to see a monologue on, on a reel. They've also said, I don't want to see a performance from a play in an acting reel. And the reason for that is most of the time the, the casting directors are going to be casting for either TV commercials, feature films, or television shows. Those are the formats that they want to see your work in. So, look, yes, there are some exceptions to the rule. If you have absolutely nothing, you have no material whatsoever, and you want to create an acting reel, so what do you do? And that takes us into step number 3 and tip number 3. Here are some options. Number one, there are companies out there that you can pay and they will create scenes for you. They will shoot things for you, and essentially, you know, it can look like it's a project that you worked on. And you can easily do Google searches and find the names of the companies. Another way that will cost you nothing is start contacting every local college university, community college in your area. Go to their website and see if in the art department if there are people who are teaching film classes, and then look and see what the classes are. If there are classes where students are shooting films for their class, this will be a great place for you to contact, and you can speak with the instructor, and you can say that you are interested in, in auditioning for some student films. And this could be a great way for you to get experience in front of a camera, meet other people in the industry, and look, who knows where a student filmmaker might end up. And maybe you can get a reel. You can get a, you know, little portion of the scene for your reel. So that's another option. Something else that you might want to try to do, maybe go to meetup.com, you know, in your area and see if there are any filmmaking groups. Go to Facebook, see if there are any filmmaking groups on Facebook, and see if you can audition for some of those projects. Those are great ways of getting information that you can actually place on your reel. Now, it's also possible that the films might look horrible or you're just not doing anything. Well, in that case, it's not going to work, but it's a great way to get experience, and hopefully you can use it. Tip number 4. So let's say you've actually done some work, but you can't get a hold of anything. You know, you did something for an independent film, you did something that was on TV, but you just can't get a copy. So there is— look, there, once again, there are a bunch of companies. One of the companies that you can check out, it's called Daily Actor, and I'll, I'll list the, the website for you. You can go there, and for pretty nominal fee, you can tell them where it's airing or where it aired. They can find it and they can make a great copy of it for you, which you can use for your demo reel. There is also a program that you can purchase called Screen Share. And with Screen Share, what you can do is if you can find Your program, just have it playing on your computer, and you can actually copy whatever is on your screen, and you can use that to edit and use it for your reel. Number 5. So how long should it be? How long should your demo reel be? Well, from everything that I've been told, you want it to be about a minute long, not longer than a minute. Now I have to— full disclosure, I got to tell you, mine is a minute 26. I've tried to edit it down as much as I could. I like showing a variety. And by the way, this particular one that I'm referring to, my demo reel, it's for film and television. And I have a nice wide variety of different types of projects in there. That's why it's longer than I really want it to be. But I like the fact that I'm able to show a lot of different kinds of work. And so, yeah, mine is 1 minute 26, but typically it should be about a minute. The reason why you don't want it long— sometimes I've seen people have 2-minute, 3-minute, 4-minute, 5-minute reels. This should be sitting in the back of your head the entire time when you're creating this. Put yourself in a casting director's shoes, and a casting director is looking at lots of reels, tons of reels for something, and they don't have time. They're not going to sit there for 3 minutes and watch something. They're just not. They— it's kind of like in the music business, you know. People who are potentially, you know, giving contracts to bands, they can hear things in seconds as to whether it piques their interest. They don't need to listen to an entire album to know. So the same thing holds true for your reel. Make it short. Try to keep it at a minute. If it's less than a minute, if you're just getting started, that's fine. It can be less than a minute. It could be 30 seconds. That's fine. Um, but don't have it too long. Another misconception that some people have is they will say, well, you know what, I want to, I want to really hit them over the head at the very end. I'm going to give them my best, you know, my, my best footage at the end so that way when they finish it they're going to be excited. But look, people may not get to the end. So my suggestion is put the most important piece up front. Let them see that so at least they will continue watching. Look, everything on your reel should be great, but if that's the case and some things are better than others, then I would lead with the best. But the other thing too is, and this kind of leads me into number 6, you've got to make sure that you are really seen in here. You know, maybe there's a scene with you and a famous actor. Well, if it's really just more reaction from you, it's really about the other actor, that's who the scene is about, don't use it. Don't, don't, you know, try to impress people just because you were in a scene with somebody well-known. The whole goal here is to show off your abilities. So if you're not really showing that much in the scene, Don't use it that way. Maybe you can find a couple of quick clips in there where you are showing your skills. And, you know, the other thing too is, look, if you, if you don't have anything else, if you only have one piece, then yeah, maybe splitting it up a little bit and then showing different segments of it, as long as it really shows something different. You know, there's something different with your character in the scene. I would do that. Otherwise, just take a little clip and then move on to something else. You don't want to keep, you know, using the same piece over and over and over, but little clips from it. Very last thing I just wanted to mention to you. You need to— oh, actually, I take it back. There are 2 little things at the end. So it's like maybe 7 and 7.5. So don't start adding music And really interesting, you know, editing and production in, in your reel. You are not there trying to sell people with your production value. You don't want anything distracting. And so if you have a lot of, you know, music that you are adding— look, if there's music in, in your scene, well, of course you're going to keep it. I'm not saying get rid of it, but don't add music to it. Don't have Things spinning in and out, and you just don't want to have that. And, and well, here's— I guess this is 7, 7.5, 7.7, or 7.9 maybe, or almost 8. Hey, I'm going to give you 8 things. Every time you show a clip, make sure that you have the title of the piece. I like the lower left-hand corner so that way as they are watching People can see what this is from. That can be really important. So like, for instance, I start my, my reel with— I was— I had a recurring role on House of Cards. It was the very first Netflix show, and my scene is with Ellen Burstyn, an Academy Award-winning actor. And so I made sure that people knew this was House of Cards. So that's in the lower left-hand corner. And I think that's really helpful for people to see. The very last thing that I was going to mention is you need to identify yourself. And I wouldn't do a slate at the end or at the beginning. What I like is just have a slide at the end that has your name and whatever contact information you want to give. So if you are working exclusively with an agent and everything you do is through the agent, well, you can have your name and then the name of the agent and contact information to the agent. If you do some things on your own and, and you work either outside of an agency or you do things in addition to having an agent, then it's fine. You can have your name, you can have your phone number, you can have your email address, a website if you want to add that as well. If you are a member of the union, SAG-AFTRA, sure, you can put that in there. I would not put non-union in there. And, but, and one other little side note to that, just please make sure if you are going to add your email address, just make sure it's professional sounding. You know, you don't want something that you did when, you know, you were in high school and, you know, I love motorcycles, you know, at Yahoo.com. Try to do something that has your name in it that makes it easy for people. Mine is— what I use for business is aaron@aaronrobertmarcus.com. So I use my middle name for anytime I'm getting credits on projects. That's how I'm listed with SAG-AFTRA, aaronrobertmarcus.com. So just make sure that you've got a good email address in there as well. So, you know, that's really the basic stuff. Make sure that you do get some material. I, like I said, I would not, you know, try to do monologues. I would not try to do anything from, from a play. And look, if you have to, maybe you have some friends and you could come up with, you know, an idea. You could write something really short If you have some people who really know about lighting and, and they, you know, you've got a camera you can shoot something with, then create your own. I mean, that would be pretty cool too. And like I said, if it's only 20 seconds or 30 seconds, that's fine. You have to start somewhere, but just make sure it has good information. And one other little quick thing for people who are more experienced, you might want to consider having multiple demo reels or sizzle reels. So I have a few different ones. I've got one for commercials. I have one for industrials because I do— they're called industrial films, corporate films, educational films, all the same thing. So I've got a separate one for that. Even like for voiceover, I have narrations, and I also have one for radio spots. Hold on, if you're just getting started, Don't worry about that yet. Just get your first reel together and, you know, work up to 1 minute. By the way, if you have done something on a reel that you find helpful, please leave that information below. The whole point of having this channel is that people share information with each other. So please, you know, help each other out. Help me. I'd like to learn new things as well. I've been doing this for over 36 years as a full-time actor, but I always, you know, I'm trying to learn new things. So leave a comment below, share information. Like I said before, if you haven't done this yet, click the subscription button. Please click the bell so you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like it, give it a thumbs up. And I can't wait to talk with you guys again soon. See ya. See ya.