Showreel Research

I will probably be concentrating on character animation in my show reel since that is the only thing that I have really done in terms of animation, so I am going to look at a few examples of show reels to help me get some ideas of how to present my shots.


One showreel that I do really love is Kilogrammes'; obviously it is a little different since that has a whole team of people working on most parts of it, which also allows hem to create a wider range of animations. I still think it is worth looking at though, especially since it is one that sticks in my head a lot.


The first thing I always notice straight away is how upbeat and fun the music is - it's more interesting than slower music, which I aways find easier to get bored of. Upbeat music gives more of a positive impression of the video, so I think hat it is the way to go where show reels are concerned. The variation of animation does show that they are capable of many different things, meaning that they can be versatile and aren't stuck in their ways, which is probably a good thing for an employer to see. It starts and ends with some very nice transitions which I think works very well to start and tie up the video, making it feel like a finished show reel and not just like they have dumped all of the animation clips they can find in there.


Titmouse "AWESOME!" Reel 2014 from Titmouse on Vimeo.

Titmouse is another studio that I love that has a really fun show reel. The music straight away is the sort to get you pumped up, with the opening animations fitting very well. There is a variation of character animation nd other things, showing that they don't just concentrate on one thing. The style varies a lot, but the themes generally stay the same - they produce mostly action things, with a lot of darker themes which is shown extremely well from this show reel - I feel like after watching this, a company would be able to tell what they would get from working with Titmouse. I feel like there is so much different animation in it though that the reel does not have to be that long - just one minute would have showed their skills really well, although the music finishes very nicely at the 2 minute mark. All f the animation was excellent quality anyway, so I don' think they have really hurt the show reel by doing it that long. Some shots could have been on for longer, although the length of them did work very well with the music, and added to the impact.

I feel like these have definitely given me a lot more ideas music-wise, so I will have to make sure that I think about it very thoroughly while making my show reel since it can make such a different to the feel of the animation.