just updated my reel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVlKHDCDNRI
enjoy - c an c welcome
how is that ue demo reel? u made that nisan car? and eco unltd…?
no that was a spot I cut together for them.Just because something has a brand name on it in your demo reel doesn’ t mean you’re claiming you made the product. that would be insane. I obviously didn’t animate all the adult swim cartoons either - just that 10 second promo. it’s a demo of my editing and motion graphics.
not bad, but my ears are bleeding from the rap music. 
Lose the song, and you’ve got a pretty decent demo reel. the part at the end where all the letters for your info are up close to the screen and the fall back so you can read them is a little annoying, but other than that, cool.
i really ought to make one some day…
Imagine a crusty old fat white guy in a suit, smoking a cigar, watching your demo reel and saying, “Nice fast cuts, kid. That all ya got?”
Don’t get me wrong, NodeRanger, there are production houses that do exactly what you do, so if you’re making a targeted demo reel for one of those houses, you’re dead on. But it’s a small market. Some day, ten, twenty years from now, when the hip-hop generation has got some serious coin to spend, the market will be a lot bigger.
The biggest problem is the background music. “State of Emergency?” You have to look at it from the employer’s point of view. The overall impression is of a one-trick pony, and it’s mostly caused by the music. It might land you a temp job or two, but for long term employment you need to show some variety. Turn the sound off, there is some visual variety. Turn it back on, the beat, beat, beat, beat, overwhelms the visuals and makes everything seem choppy. The hip-hop beat works with the Nissan segment, because that’s all fast cuts anyway, but for the Ambrose Video logo and the other corporate logos, it’s totally inappropriate.
You’ve got the talking head Nik Pace segment to use for a transition between Nissan and the Ambrose/Zarus segments, then you’ve got the adult swim cartoon segments which need some kind of light bouncy cartoon music. The Voxel Inc/arco systems segment might get some kind of symphonic overture thingy, hopefully timed to get some musical upswelling to make the overly fast swing of the arco system logo look deliberate.
Well, there’s more segments, but you get the point. I mean, come on, would the pizza movie guy really play State of Emergency as a background theme? 
thanks for the input, I mean it. you have a lot of good points. I’m still learning, teaching myself stuff and I’m pretty young (23) so that’s encouraging. I definitely agree with the music but I had that lead-in with the ecko piece and fades between music kind of annoy me, but I know it’s far from perfect. I really just threw it together for an interview yesterday. and, for the record, it is a targeted reel for aftereffects / motion graphics post houses so you’re on the mark about that. there are a lot of them in new york
and, by the way, the “hip-hop generation” has a LOT of coin to spend, especially around here. I know that rap isn’t everyone’s taste though and I will definitely rework it
EDIT: Lukus - just read your post
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it is amateurish - I am an amateur, still trying to build up the reel, also, I cut this together in one night. regardless there are too many tech issues (although the gray video in the beginning has to do with compression artifacts)
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the initial video for the ecko piece was almost unusable - in fact I had to use those still shots of the car because the camera guy had epilepsy or was borderline retarded. I have never seen such awful footage, and unfortunately there wasn’t too much I could do with it. out of an hour of video there was literally ten minutes of usuable film.
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all of the 3d stuff was never really meant to be on there. yes it is filler I am working on cleaning up zarus and adding some textures, making the array stuff more organized and generally just making everything look more professional
seriously though, thanks for the critique
I have to say it looks rather amateurish. No offence intended.
Things I notice very quickly:
*Video starts of as a grey background and then switches to black, appears to be more of a glitch than intentional and gives me the thought of “why wasn’t this fixed”
*Begining text, probabily looks wishywashy cause of youtube’s flash player so i’ll let that go, but the way the text appears isn’t the most exciting thing to see. There’s definatly better text animtion effects you can do.
*The begining fotage of the car look like it’s been recorded by a novice. Reminds me of mobile phone video recordings since they can’t keep the camera still. Can’t say it’s giving a great first impression for your reel, looks like its footage for a low budget program where the presenter /voice is also the camera man >.>
*The car image “fading” to white has artifacts that are clearly noticable and should have been removed, No excuse for that.
*Car photos. Some of the photos should have been left out IMO. Overall it didn’t seem to be in sync with the music or anything would would have (IMO) given more impact.
*Some of the 3d renders /scenes, i.e. zarus, f/stop look cheap and nasty, and just should never of been added! Zarus isn’t that bad, on it own but the duplicates in the background made it look tacty.
Pros:
*When the video switch from the girl to the cars at 0.26 is a good effect, and im sure it looks better on more quality video than youtube.
*Arco system starts of good, (I dont like the ending cause it seems to flow unantural but you could dismiss that as one person’s opinion) and i assume you rendered it?
Good for you! Knowing your market is a big step toward becoming a professional. Now if fades between music annoy you, you need to study them, find out what exactly annoys you, find some that don’t and figure out why. Then reproduce the good ones in your own work. As if you didn’t have enough to do already! 
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