Reinventing the Reel

Once upon a time (or more like around the early ‘90s) just about everyone in the advertising industry had a montage reel. And why not? It was a bombastic way to show off the best work, draw attention to featured celebrities, and smooth over any projects that maybe didn’t turn out quite as expected but were still valuable to share. 

Freelance producer Jonny Kight remembers the heyday of the reel fondly. “I remember going to RSA’s website and seeing a roster of directors’s reels but Tony Scott’s showreel particularly stood out. It was this incredible montage of all his work. It had a god-like VO announcing his name – it featured the films ‘Top Gun’, ‘The Last Boy Scott’, ‘Days Of Thunder’, ‘Beverly Hills Cop II’ and ‘True Romance’ to name but a few, along with his commercials. It has the classic Tony Scott aesthetic of long lenses and a shit-load of haze,” he says. While it was practically mandatory for directors to have a showreel, DOPs and editors would typically have them too. 

 

It’s hard to say when exactly the showreel fell out of fashion - and plenty of people have always made them - but they stopped feeling quite as necessary around the time that creatives started using personal websites as their portfolios and including all pieces of work they wanted seen by the world. What this move lacked was personality, which the showreel always had to have. In 2023, freelance producer Jonny Kight decided to channel some of the reels that first inspired him and, “as a bit of a joke”, reached out to Marshall Street Editors to create one to round up all the best work he did that year and editor Becca Spaven stepped up to the task. “I mostly wanted to do it for a laugh,” says Jonny. “If I’m honest all it really does, I think, is show off how good an editor is! It’s all a load of fluff!”

SJ O’Mara, head of production at Marshall Street Editors, says that Jonny had “excellent source material to draw from.” SJ comments that for a good showreel “it’s a question of picking your selects really well and seeing if you can create interesting edits, perhaps driving little narratives and connections or transitions between the shots. You then pick a banging track, re-edit with a few new ideas, and then you have a nice reel that helps demonstrate your accomplishments.”

SJ observes that the industry right now is more competitive than ever “so everyone is pitching like crazy. We’re probably making more reels now than ever before. Luckily it’s something we enjoy as you can get quite creative with it at times.” From an editing perspective, a reel offers the kind of adaptability that nothing else can. “A ‘portfolio’ reel might have to be quite general and might display the breadth of work the editor is experienced in. A customised reel is specifically pitched for a particular project. You might have an editor who is great with comedy but who only has one or two relevant spots on their portfolio reel. A custom reel lets you do a deep dive into the archive and pull up some gems,” SJ explains. 

Towards the end of last year Jonny noticed that instead of posting a carousel of images on Instagram to round up the year or particular events, more and more companies opted for the reel format. MindsEye and SomeSuch used theirs to highlight how big a year the team had and to thank everyone involved in making it happen, while Iconoclast and Smuggler used the reel format to round-up their Ciclope experiences. 

So what makes a reel real good? SJ has the answer: “Attention to detail is key. As creative editors, it is important to show the utmost respect for each and every project that comes through the door. This starts by reading all the job information but particularly the director’s treatment as that gives you a glimpse into the director’s vision. You can pick up on keywords and phrases like ‘dynamic transitions’ or ‘cinematic’ for example and pick up on visual cues and references etc. As you are reviewing, you note these down to provide inspiration when you’re trawling through your editor’s archives. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the director may have referenced work that one of your editors actually cut themselves, which is always a win! It also helps to get the editor’s opinions too as they have a deep understanding of their work.”

Jonny knows that a reel is a creative’s way to put the best foot forward, even when the project hasn’t turned out quite as it was supposed to. “Reels look kind of cool – dare I say it - and they’re a way to show off great work, and this is obviously not why I did it….hang on… It’s also a chance to spotlight the good parts of something that didn’t quite turn out as expected, like something that has excellent production value, for example. A big celebrity is always good to include! Let’s be honest, one scene could be shot beautifully while the rest not so much,” he says with a smile. Ultimately, however, “you have to have good work in the reel, that’s the trick.”