Showreel

A showreel is a short cut of the best work of an agency, a studio or a single person. It shows handwriting and range in one to two minutes, not individual projects in full. Anyone deciding who to work with usually watches the showreel first.

What a showreel has to do

It answers one question: can these people do what I need. So the strongest three seconds belong at the front, not in the middle. Whoever opens a showreel decides within moments whether to keep watching, exactly as with an ad. The logic behind that is set out under hook.

Two mistakes are common. The first is length: three minutes does not get watched through, not even when the work is good. The second is arbitrariness: twenty clips pulling in twenty directions leave no handwriting, only the impression that someone does a bit of everything.

How we handle ours

Our showreel runs on the home page and on About. Every film in it is spec work, made without a client, some for invented brands, some as a free interpretation of known ones. That is written on each individual film, not buried in the small print.

This is the most important point about showreels and the one most often left out. A cut made of practice pieces but presented as a client list is a misrepresentation of experience. We publish client projects with names and results as soon as the first films are live and we are allowed to name them.

How to spot an honest showreel

• The origin is stated. Commissioned work, spec work or a contribution to a larger project are three different things.
• The share is named. Someone who only did the edit should not claim the whole film.
• The long version exists. If no complete film exists behind a clip, it is fair to ask why.

Frequently asked questions

Related terms

Read on: All terms in the glossary • Our films • About us