Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1433871
110 SAG-AFTRA | Fall/Winter 2021 | sagaftra.org "Think of your reel as an advertisement: You're the product and your reel is your commercial, and it has to highlight you and your brand," said SAG-AFTRA member and SAG-AFTRA Foundation Small Group Sessions Instructor Scott Krinsky during Biz Basics: Tips for Your Professional Reel on July 17. The event was organized by the SAG-AFTRA President's Task Force on Education, Outreach & Engagement. Whether your reel focuses on your acting, commercial, dance or stunt work, there are many factors to consider when you put your reel together or update its content. ACHIEVING THE INDUSTRY STANDARD Your material is one of the first of many factors to consider before drafting your demo reel. Demo reels are nothing without clips, but not every scene is useable. Before getting started, review your clips for lighting, visuals and crisp sound. "You want to emulate what you see on television or in a film," said Krinsky. "Even if the quality of acting is great, if [a casting director or talent agent] can't hear you or see you well, it's going to be hard to focus on your acting." Krinsky's sentiment is echoed by Paul Norton, veteran professional demo reel editor and founder of Paul's Video Production, an audiovisual, editing and auditioning service business based in Hollywood, California. "You want to consider everything that you can use and then, when you put it all together, get a better idea of what you don't need and why. If the issue [is] color or the image quality, that's easily fixed, but sound is … more difficult to clean up, [and] it gets pretty obvious which things can't make the final cut," said Norton. Scott Krinsky