Secret Handshake Entertainment’s Joe Gressis on Demo Reels: Why you need one, when you need one and more!

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If you’re looking to make a demo reel or have your current one updated, look no further than Joe Gressis at Secret Handshake Entertainment.

Joe has been editing for years and he is the go-to-guy for several big agencies when they want their actors to update their reels.

Why is Joe so great? Because he is also a producer (A Little Help starring Jenna Fischer and Chris O’Donnell will be released soon) and looks at reels from that perspective.

And check below for some reels of well-known actors!

At what point should an actor get a reel?
Pretty quickly. As soon as they’ve got enough material to support it, basically, because so much of casting is now done online and with DVDs. They go through so many people that as soon as you have it the better.  As soon as you have the material to support. And sometimes, you want to make your own material just to have a reel because so much of it is now based on that before they even will bring you in or anything like that they’ll want to see that.

What do you think of the services that offer filming scenes for actors to put on their reels?
Well, some of them are pretty good.  But you definitely don’t want to skimp on that because if it looks made up, then it doesn’t really help that much.

You can tell?
Yeah, you definitely can tell.  But there are some places that have really good-looking scenes where it’s difficult to tell.  And it really does showcase the actor and it could be an indie film.  And it’s shot on some high-quality HD.  As long as it’s done well I think it’s very advantageous, actually.  Things have changed, at one point that was not true, but because HD cameras are so much better now and give such good image quality that yeah you can do it.

What’s the perfect length for a reel?
Rule of thumb would be 2-5 minutes, and most people will say keep it shorter.  Although, I will actually say that because of the way a lot of digital media works that the rule of the length of a reel is kind of changing because so many people now look at them online.  Vast majority is now online, and what I’ve seen, because I actually just produced a movie where I saw the casting director and director go through a bunch of reels.  I kind of see the behavior of people who are really actively involved in casting people, and so I really paid attention especially in regards to this side of the business.

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