first demo reel

[Craiger]

Hamz,


I'll just be straight to the point with you. Your demo is way too big. Its 456 megs! Do you think any employer is going to wait 20 minutes to download your demo reel? Use sorenson 3 compression. Its really good. You should be able to get that reel down under 20 megs. If you're going to archive it, use winrar. It works much better than .zip files.

You need to lose the entire first piece in your demo. Its waaaaaaaaaay to long. 1:27 should be the length of your entire demo, not the first piece. If you know the piece is annoying, then why is it in there in the first place? Then end of that piece with all the text(if you want this annoying thing to stop...) is extremely unprofessional. You need to think about who you're sending this too. Employers who are looking at demo reels, can look at up to 100 - 200 per day. This means if they don't see something they like in the first 20 seconds, it gets turned off.

The best part of your demo is the modeling. You've definitely got some promise there, but I'd lose the animation aspect of your reel. Just slapping some animation on a rig is going to detract from all the hard work you've put into the models.

I like the ferrari at the end, but you need to texture it. If you're going to do the wireframe up to final render, then make sure you've textured it.

werd.

[Imatk]

Hey man, Craiger gave you some solid advice.

I myself started to download it but when I saw how big it was, I stopped.

Follow his advice about the Sorensen. Compress that baby down to around 15-20 megs at most.

And although I didn't see the reel, yes, you don't want the reel to be much longer than a minute and 30 secs. You want something that's strong and hooks them right away and leaves them wanting more :)

Good luck and post it up again after you make it smaller.

[hamz]

Hey guys,


Thanks for the advice - iv been working on the crits all day on both the reel and the website - a new one will be posted ready for you tomorrow.

i composited the reel in combustion rendered at 768x576 pal resolution. Its also compressed using sorensen 3 with a medium setting - i have no idea why its so big?

can you share any of your compression settings please.

Thanks again.

Hamz

[OneSharpMarble]

Ok I can't help it, the name of your website makes me laugh.

Anyone see that Conan OBrien where he went to Norway and found someone with the last name "Fagerstrom"? lol

Also yes that file is waaay to big.

[wchristiansen]

I use h.264 and set the bit rate to 768 and my 2.5 minute reel is like 22mb running at 720x480

-Will

[Waha]

on the bright side, my friend did a 3gig video which is only about 5 mins long, quality was abit bad, ah well will view yours when I get back home

O.o
3 gig

[hamz]

Alright Lads/ladies?

Take two.

I was up till 2:30am tryna get this reel down to size. - its 400x300 res. I compressed it using sorensen 3 on medium - there are two additional settings in the dialogue box:

- keyframe every: ___/frame
- limit data rate to____kb/s

i would still like to get the reel rendered at 768x576 at the normal file size if anyone can help.

anyway heres the new link :

http://www.hdbutt.co.uk/demo_reel_small.rar (http://www.hdbutt.co.uk/demo_reel_small.rar)



Thanks again for all your helpful pointers.

Hamz.

[kerr]

hi... i´ve downloaded your reel and got angry when i saw the filesize!!! hehehe anyway, the talking guy in the start is too long (1:20 without camera changing) and i almost shut down your reel off and deleted it without looking it, but after a download that big, it deserves to look and get some crits... not only the intro guy is too long, but every scene is giant... too long... boring...
Even you talks against your work in your own reel.... "if you want this annoying thing to stop you better hire the creator"... WTF?????
That´s time to review your ideas about a professional reel.... on the other hand, your modelling and texturing skills are nice... good luck...
PS: edit your first post and add the small file link....

[Craiger]

Hamz,


Thats sooooo much better. Your reel looks much more professional now. You're still at 102 megs, which is too high. But with some practice, you can get your demo compressed better. I hope you can see the difference in your new reel, from the first one... I sure can...

Good luck.

Craiger.

[hamz]

kerr - download the newer reel just above your post!

craiger - thanks for the comments - im working on speeding up the turntables and the ferrari construction animation.

will post it when im finished.

kerr - how can i edit the first post so i can edit the new link?

hamz.

[kerr]

to edit your post, log in, go to your post and click on the image "edit post" (bottom right of your post)...

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