Many film schools require that you submit a reel of your work. NYU and Texas required this. UCLA suggested bringing a reel to the interview if one was available. It probably spares them a lot of long, arduous, and often unnecessary screening.
The reel I sent to NYU and UTexas was 14 minutes long. This was a big no no, reflected in my rejection by both schools. The reel I brought to my UCLA interview was 6 minutes long.
One of my goals for this site is to demystify the film school application process and to give useful advice on how to apply. In the spirit of that I am showing the reel that I was waitlisted and then accepted on:
It’s a small cut of my most interesting work made before the application. Brevity and quality are king here. You’ll notice I didn’t put the film Intervention on here because it’s a bad movie with pretty pictures. It was on the far too long reel which I submitted to NYU and UTexas. That reel was more concerned with quantity, i.e. showing that I had done a lot of stuff, rather than quality, i.e. showing a few things I’d done well.
Here are some things to keep in mind while editing your showreel for film school. Some of these suggestions come from Roberta Munroe’s excellent book How Not to Make A Short Film, which you should read immediately.
From Jason:
- Brevity and quality are more important than quantity.
- An interesting story is better than pretty pictures.
- Choose 5 minutes of your best material. The people watching them will be grateful. Just because NYU says they allow up to a half hour does not mean you should take them up on their offer.
- Keep titles simple.
- Make a DVD that plays directly when you put it in.
- Make it as easy as possible to watch and enjoy your dvd.
- No special features. No one cares.
- Test the DVD on a number of players.
- People are impressed by what is on the reel, not what is around it i.e. packaging or elaborate photos of yourself. At the film school I applied to in Berlin, there was a shopping cart full of applications. Don’t be the guy with a cool-looking picture of yourself on your DVD case. It just looks silly.
- Show your reel to friends who aren’t going to lie about how bad something is.
- In a similar vein, if your intuition tells you something is bad, cut it. Brevity.
- Give yourself at least two weeks before the deadline to send it off in case of problems.
From Roberta’s book:
- Don’t package your work so it takes four people and vise grips to get it open.
- Do make sure that your DVD plays all the way through before mailing it in.
- Don’t use paper labels on your DVD. They are the leading cause of unplayable discs.
- Do write or print your film title directly on the face of the disc with a black Magic Marker.
- Don’t include promotional items from your film.
- Don’t shrink-wrap your DVD case. It won’t make your film look any more professional or legitimate.
- Do be patient. Calling to plead your case will only make you look desperate. Let your work speak for itself.
Finally I would like to add:
- Be hard but forgiving on yourself and your work. Hopefully you have developed an eye for your own crap. It is a school you are applying to, which means you are not the end-all be-all filmmaker. You’re going there to learn.
- Be proud of yourself for applying, there are many people who don’t even make it that far.
Good luck!
