Getting a showreel scene made from scratch can be a daunting thing. Actors feel the need to get so many things right. They want to show castability, they want to show range, they want to show natural acting. All of these things are crucial, but there are other, equally important factors that make a showreel scene a strong one.
‘Casting Types’ have always been important. If you want to get cast, you need to know how Casting Directors are going to perceive you. And if you feel like they can’t figure you out, a showreel scene is a chance to direct them towards the answer.
Many clients will come to me saying things like ‘I want to be a police officer,’ or ‘I want to show authority by playing a lawyer character’. These are all valid things to want on your showreel, but they are not enough. To make a showreel scene that will be impactful, you need to take it a step further. There’s an element that is important to making a scene stand out – but it’s so easy for people to forget or disregard.
Showing JUST a ‘Casting Type’ is not enough, because if you focus too much on ‘showing I could be a Doctor on an episode of Casualty’, then you are likely to make a very boring scene. I had a client a few months ago who said to me, ‘I want a Doctor scene, and a police officer scene, but I don’t want too much drama, just something simple, almost generic, to show me in a bog standard authority role’.
I understood what he meant, but if I had followed his wishes to the letter, the scenes would have been terrible.
Here’s the generic view of a showreel scene:
A showreel scene exists to showcase you as an actor, giving a sampling of the types of characters you can play.
What’s wrong with that, you ask?
It’s BORING!
A showreel scene needs to be MORE than just a showreel scene.
It needs to come alive, using the dynamics of STORYTELLING.
You need to feel like the character you are playing is ACTUALLY A CHARACTER!
Sure, you can play a police officer in a scene where your one job is to say ‘where were you last Tuesday at 8pm?’ – but it’s boring.
Yes, you may see police officers doing these scenes on TV shows, but they are PART OF A LARGER STORY! Whether it’s their character, or the person they’re questioning, the scene is captivating because it is part of a larger world.
If you JUST have the question/answer dynamic without additional meaning or context, you have a boring scene.
Why are so many showreel scenes bad? It’s usually one of two reasons.
A) Because the scene is boring, with nothing at stake.
A police officer questions a suspect, trying to find out if they were at the scene of the crime.
B) The writer has tried too hard to cram in story, using very hard-to-believe exposition.
A police officer asks the suspect some questions, while dealing with the fact the suspect may be on drugs. The police officer himself is dealing with a drug problem, and it’s why he hasn’t seen his son in four years. Also, the suspect is considering breaking out of the interview room, and secretly has a knife, but the officer already knows this, but hasn’t let it be known.
How do you make a showreel scene good?
Sure, show a casting type. But tell a story! Use the craft of screenwriting to elevate the characters and the drama to a point of intrigue.
Here’s a showreel scene I created for actor Shola Komolafe. The scene shows a distinct casting type for both actors. It shows they can play professional characters. Specifically, the scene is about two solicitors, working a case.
Seeing them in this scene, you could easily see them as lawyers, police officers, teachers, therapists— pretty much any kind of professional, authoritative role.
But what I also did when I penned the script, was to give them a romantic connection. To tease the audience with the sense that more is happening underneath. There’s a sense of ‘will they/won’t they’ to the characters, as the dialogue dances back and forth.
The scene is only 59 seconds long, but we know so much about the characters. We have a sense of their professionalism AND their personal lives. We see characters with GOALS and NEEDS.
After watching, you’d be comfortable casting both of these actors — you know they can play lawyers, and all those other types of authority roles, but they also got to have fun doing it, in a scene that plays romantically as well as dramatically.
A showreel scene is not meant to be boring. It still needs to hold the audience’s attention; it needs a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It needs to be interesting!
Find out more about my showreel creation service.
