Show reels, show reels, show reels (What I've learnt while making one, or two....or three?)

I haven't written a blog in a while, been busy with life! Had some big changes that I cannot announce yet! However I wanted to make a blog on what I have learnt on my journey from the start to the present. For starters I did not know what a sound design show reel for game audio was, having graduated university studying Creative Music Technology I was not prepared on how to enter the job market for music let alone doing sound design. It took me a while from doing retail (hated it), training for television as a sound recordist then discovering the Warner Bros Discovery Access programme from one of the producers on Twitter. I've learnt a great deal about game audio that I did not know existed and I was eager to learn so much more as I only scratched the surface. Where to start? After the programme I had to figure out what game clips I can use to recreate the sound design from scratch. I record some Foley from my Zoom H4N PRO that I had when I first created my show reel. I used this opportunity to learn about recording techniques, VSTs, noise reduction since the preamps on the Zoom H4N PRO are really noisy to record with. Luckily the Zoom H6 and F3 were on sale at some point so I got to replace the H4N PRO with them. Deciding which clips I wanted to use was a bit tricky since I've played so many games at this point (around 500+ disc games), some of the footage I recorded myself and some I had found online on Youtube. My advice is to go with any clips that could sound interesting and grab the viewer's attention with your sound design skills. The interesting and complex the better. I used Reaper to put together my sound design and VEGAS PRO to help edit and render both visuals and audio together. My interest from making Mortal Kombat combo videos and watching a ton of video game trailers helped me understand video editing, pacing and visual editing video clips together which help enhanced my visuals as well as prepare my sound design to video as it helped flow my audio show reel together. Having a decent sound library really helped my creativity as I can combine my recordings with other libraries to create new sounds that would work well with my show reel. The challenges while creating a sound design show reel Making show reels became more challenging and complex whenever I started viewing other sound designer's reels, I felt like mine was lacking the impacts the complexity of each frequency and sounds that mine was not showing. I didn't want to take a sound and just leave it there in my reel, I had to make it something unique and interesting. Basically try and come up with a way to make my own sound signature or style. Also I did not want to use a popular video clip that majority of people have used in their show reel, I wanted mine to stand out from the other show reels that were presented and make mine really unique. Trying to tailor your show reel to a specific company can help as well luckily I did not have to do this, I've made mine a combination of cinematics and gameplay from both AAA and Indie games which covers the majority of the jobs I was applying for. Feedback is key, learn to wield it I was fortunate enough to receive really good feedback on my show reels whenever I had a chance to present them. Learning to take criticism was never my strong suit but I had to adapt and really tune down my ego which helped me a lot in the long run. People want to help out the best way they can and you can learn so much from having a different set of ears listening to your show reel. My Limit Break mentor Kasia Dziekan (The best mentor you can have) gave me so much feedback from my first show reel but I felt like that show reel was a bit out dated so I redesigned it from scratch again, planning the flow and pacing. Every meeting we had I let her hear my show reel and see what I have missed out. She would point out what was missing or lacking in my sound design and give me some advice on how to improve it. I then went back and see what was I can improve on it. I think without her giving me good advice and feedback I won't have improved on my show reel, let alone my sound design skills. Really grateful for that! I learnt to take it as a way to improve and to learn more about sound design. Bad habits While creating my show reel, I spent about 4 - 5 weeks in isolation creating and editing it altogether. I think the only time I had to leave my home was to go to the gym around 2am every night since it was the only time where the majority of the machines were free. I couldn't sleep during this time so I used this to my advantage and watch a lot of sound design videos, took notes and applied them to my show reel the next day. I would not recommend this at all as it disrupts your sleepy cycle and messes up your workflow during the day. Luckily I was not doing much other then just absorbing as much sound design knowledge as I can while staying fit. I was really passionate about game audio and wanted to make it my goal to break into the industry by going through audio. I would however recommend to take as much breaks as you can, since you can get ear fatigue and sounds would not register properly with your brain. Stretching too! Presenting and Platforms Once my show reel was ready I had to figure out a way to present it so people can view my reel on different platforms for potential interviews. My main platform to host my reel was Youtube but other people used Vimeo. I have used Vimeo before but it was more of a hassle to use as it would lock my reel sometimes and would require an account to view my reel. Youtube was so much simpler since you can just view the reel on a site. I used Wix to host my projects and portfolio, it's a decent site to use but I only use it to put my projects together, does the job. The first thing someone who wants to see is your reel, on the main home page. The fewer mouse clicks the better and it saves so much time. I also pinned them on my social accounts such as Twitter so anyone can view it. Sometimes having more sound redesigns on your main page could help compliment your show reel as it provides more of your sound design skills without extending your show reel. Also best work first, at least 60 - 90 seconds long and it has to be interesting all the way. No long intros or outros!! Conclusion In conclusion, I have learnt a lot from designing a couple a show reels. From sound design to editing for video to presenting your reel to taking feedback and improving upon it. There was so much to take in and I really enjoyed the process. Got some exciting news soon too! :)