Hey guys, I will be leaving my post at Harmonix and head back to the West Coast. I was wondering if I could get any pointers from my esteemed colleagues on my current rigging reel? You guys have saved my ass in the past so, I figured you guys would know what’s up. 
Any help would be appreciated, I have no idea how to construct a proper rigging/TA reel, and unfortunately, no one that I know does. Am I missing anything, is there irrelevant stuff, bad editing? I’ll even take a “It sucks” as a critique, heh.
Hey Leo!
My thoughts initially are that I really don’t need to see the animation of the guys playing the music. I’d rather see a fullscreen of the rig moving and then maybe some small clips of it’s best facial. The full body stuff and music is distracting.
I like the way you lay out the tools section, describing the problem and the solution. I’d suggesting using a more clear font and making it a little bigger. I had to squint to read the text and I have godly, perfect eye sight. 
The animation of the beasty fighting the wolves is sweet but a bit long considering it’s relevancy. You might consider not showing the entire thing, (it’s better towards the beginning imo).
/2cents
Good luck! Any idea where you’re heading on the west coast?
Thank you so much
I’m actually going to be leaving during the end of August and I’ll be back on the coast within the first week of September. Going to do the road trip thing and see what the hullabaloo is all about.
I’m not an expert on this area, but I would have the tool being shown while the description of the problem and solution are being shown. Having just a black screen with text is unnecessary I think. The demo reel can always be paused if the person watching wants to read the full description. That or shorten it up and show it while showing off the tool.
[QUOTE=Bharris;7002]I’m not an expert on this area, but I would have the tool being shown while the description of the problem and solution are being shown. Having just a black screen with text is unnecessary I think. The demo reel can always be paused if the person watching wants to read the full description. That or shorten it up and show it while showing off the tool.[/QUOTE]
I haven’t actually watched the reel yet just wanted to comment on what Bharris said.
I personally dont think they will be happy pausing your reel to read the info, if they have 20 reels to watch and have to keep pausing them they will be there forever.
I was advised that if I had any substantial text that I wanted to show I should send it along with my reel on a printed piece, that way they can easily read it if they want to.
With a reel you are trying to sell yourself and your ability, you dont want to make them work to find out stuff about your skills, you want to make it easy for them to see how good you are.
Just my 2 pennies.
[QUOTE=supertom44;7012]I haven’t actually watched the reel yet just wanted to comment on what Bharris said.
I personally dont think they will be happy pausing your reel to read the info, if they have 20 reels to watch and have to keep pausing them they will be there forever.
I was advised that if I had any substantial text that I wanted to show I should send it along with my reel on a printed piece, that way they can easily read it if they want to.
With a reel you are trying to sell yourself and your ability, you dont want to make them work to find out stuff about your skills, you want to make it easy for them to see how good you are.
Just my 2 pennies.[/QUOTE]
I’ll agree on that. I think the main thing would be to not have a screen where work is not being shown. A screen that does nothing but explain a tool probably isn’t as interesting to watch as something being demoed with information displayed.
[QUOTE=Bharris;7013]IA screen that does nothing but explain a tool probably isn’t as interesting to watch as something being demoed with information displayed.[/QUOTE]
+1
This is also a great litmus test for your tools as well. Personally, I’ve gone back and re-written entire tools because watching a quick demo reel style presentation made me realize how much simpler and straightforward a certain tool could be.:laugh:
I took a quick look,
1- opening is nice but would start the game footage on the guy singing since your showing the face rig and then blow up the face rig footage to be the full screen so we can see the rig.
2- Agree- the problem solution is good but , text is to small , could do black with text saying the problem then go in to the footage of the tool since that is the solution, with text subtitled. This would help keep the footage clear as there seems to be some fuzzing/bluring of the max capture footage that is also distracting and hard to see what is being shown.
again go full screen of the tool use footage instead of leaving blank /problem solution text there
part 3- creature, here you could follow the same pattern as you did with the start, show the animation with a p.i.p video of the rig being posed then go in to the full screen of the rig… and leave off the end of the animation of it crawling out of the tree…it was not the best looking work and does not add to the reel.
Hope that helps,
Brad
Thanks, this really helps out a lot. Do you guys have any tips on what else I should add? Does everything in there seem substantial? Should I put more tools, more stuff in our proprietary engine, or max? I know it’s kinda weak on the rigging side, but to be honest a lot of my involvement was more behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes stuff… if that makes sense.
pt3: I agree with bclark the p.i.p could work well for this part too. I would also avoid speeding up the video of you posing the character too much. It made it difficult to really see the rig.
I updated it and decided to go for Vimeo. Thanks guys for all your feedback!
Vimeo is a good choice. YouTube is getting really laggy these days.
Great reel.
Much better! I like it, tools were clear, results of the tools and the variety was well done, nice update Leo.