$500

$250

Your demo reel might showcase your best work, but if you’re not paying attention to these three critical elements, your demo reel might be not be doing all it can for you. Here are the three most critical things that will make or break your demo reel.

1. Keep it Short n’ Snappy

Even though it might feel cinematic to lead into your demo reel with a long, sexy reveal set to swoon music, you’re wasting valuable time. The best demo reels grab your attention by the throat.

You only have ten seconds to pique your audience’s interest. Once you’ve captured it, you have to work hard to keep it. By the one minute mark, your viewer has probably stopped watching. The best demo reels we’ve seen clock in at under 45 seconds.

If you feel that one 45 second demo reel doesn’t showcase all the kinds of work you can do, create multiple demo reels that you can use in different situations.

2. Identify Yourself + Your Work

Including your name and contact information is one critical piece that so many creators neglect to remember.
• Open with your name and titles
• Close with a long freeze-frame of your contact information
• Bonus! Lower third text identifying the project and your work you created with other people shows your respect for your collaborators and identifies you as a professional.

3. Edit to Great Music

Snagging that perfect clip to soundtrack your showreel is critical. The tone of the music should match your work — It doesn’t always have to be a fast-paced electro banger. Generally upbeat music is going to grab attention, but if you’re an introspective cinematographer that romantic strings piece is great. And make sure you’re editing on the beat – matching visual and audio rhythm makes things feel much snappier and fluid. People’s eyes and ears dance together.

Don’t forget: once you’ve got a demo reel wrapped, get it up on Poptent! We pick our favorite demo reels uploaded each month and award it $500!

$7,500

The brand recently initiated their UPS My Choice campaign featuring the Poptent videos and we want to update you with some great news. At facebook.com/ups, four of the purchased videos are featured in the UPS My Choice section/tab (bitly link here: http://on.fb.me/J2NzZn), playing in random rotation until Tuesday, June 19th, 2012. Each of these videos is eligible for a $5,000 bonus, which will be awarded to the video deemed the “most popular” during the viewing period. The four Poptent producers are 323 Media, Deep End Films, RezFx, and Jared Hedges. Super stoked for them – we are extremely proud of our community’s involvement in such a huge push for such a well respected brand!

The “most popular” video will be determined based on likes, views, shares and unique positive comments either on the UPS My Choice tab or in featured wall posts during the viewing period (as measured by UPS). Positive interactions by UPS employees on its employee site will also be a factor in determining the most popular… So get ready to tap into your social networks.

Each weekend during the promotion, one video will be spotlighted on the UPS Facebook page in a wall post. Activity on the video during it’s respective weekend as a UPS Wall post – i.e. outside of the tab that will always contain all 4 videos – will only be counted Saturday through Tuesday of that week, to ensure equal exposure and fairness for all. Here’s the posting schedule:

• Monday, May 21, 2012 3PM EST – Poptent Announcement Post
• Saturday, May 26, 2012 10AM EST – Make the Box Wait
• Saturday, June 2, 2012 10AM EST – Waiting on a Package
• Saturday, June 9, 2012 10AM EST – Ooga Booga
• Saturday, June 16, 2012 10AM EST – The UPS My Choice Rap

We’ll keep you posted during the next 30 days. Poptent is super proud of our community’s work for UPS. Keep up the great work everyone! Big thanks to UPS for including us in such a huge promotional push as well.

$500

$250

Between Open Assignments, Invite Assignments, and Poptent Productions, we’ve cultivated more great opportunities for independent filmmakers to create video for major brands than ever. While everyone can get into the Open Assignments, some opportunities are offered to an exclusive group of producers, our Poptent Pros.

Are you a Poptent Pro?

A Poptent Pro is a producer who has had an assignment submission purchased by one of our brand or agency clients. A purchase in any assignment, whether it’s open or invite, will make you a Poptent Pro. Poptent Pros get first access to Invite Assignment and direct-paying Poptent Productions opportunities because their creative work is inspired, well-produced, and impresses our clients.

Plenty of Poptent members haven’t yet been purchased by our brand or agency clients, but many of you are also producing well-thought out, technically solid videos. That’s great! We see a clear path to success for you here – a way to break into professional commercial filmmaking. For instance, we do invite members of our community with skill sets we need for specific assignments, but haven’t yet been purchased, to participate in Invite Assignments.

How do I become a Pro?

We want to cultivate as many Poptent Pros as possible, and we’re committed to helping you succeed and join this elite group. With a little hard work and creative prowess, you’ll become a top member of Poptent in no time.

First, make sure you’re regularly participating in our Open Assignments. Again, if your video gets purchased by one of our clients, you’re a Pro.

Demonstrating that you can consistently craft great creative and technically-solid videos on a deadline will also earn you Invites to selective assignments that increase your opportunities to get that first purchase. Some producers get an Invite slot after their very first video submission, while others need a few assignments get comfortable with the process and start producing videos that our clients will purchase.

The main criteria we use to select participants for each Invite Assignment is our belief that a producer can write scripts and create video that impresses and is good enough to be purchased by a major brand. Often, we do some match-making between what the brand is looking for and the producers’ skill sets, but there are some specific traits that most of our Pros share, and we look for from all producers:

– The ability to sell subtly
- Tight editing
- Avoidance of common sense mistakes
- Strong technical skills
- Following privacy guidelines, including not posting submissions anywhere except Poptent.net

Conclusion

We’re working hard at refining this process to make sure everyone who’s talented and motivated enough gets allocated good, fun work. If you’d like feedback on what you can do to be invited to participate in Invite Assignments, don’t be afraid to ask. Our Community Managers are more than happy to give you feedback on any of the videos you’ve created.

Have more questions? Head over to our Invite Assignment discussion, and ask away.

$10,000

$7500

$7,500

Congratulations to Sto-lo/dob Films, 323Media, emmett.fraser, Jennifer Simmons, and ruhtie06 who are all being purchased by the brand for $7,500.

Check out all of there spots right here on the blog or over in the results gallery. Send them some love.

Let’s do some quick math – $7,500 x 5 = $37,500. Now that’s a Huge creator payout! Unreal.