What is a demo reel? It's a montage, often set to music that is a commercial, a calling card, a demonstration of what you do in the film world. It usually consists of a collection of shots from different projects set to an unrelated music track. It can have a more social function as well giving license to amuse, brag, exaggerate, shout out to colleagues, self-deprecate, name drop, crack jokes - all completely visually. Cinematographers, visual effects artists, editors, colorists, directors, production companies all make reels.
As an assistant editor in the early 90's I cut many reels, some of my own, but mostly for directors and cinematographers represented by a large production company I worked for. Some of the work going into the reels was really good, some of it sucked, but as I was often reminded by a wise producer, the core of our work was to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.
I took this to heart, because like most people I like chicken salad a lot, and the thought of being able to make it from chicken shit, however metaphorically, was pretty damn exciting.
Some thoughts on making good chicken salad: you need chicken (shots) and you need some vegetables (music) - like fennel, arugula, pickles, olives, celery. But it doesn't really start to work until you add mayonnaise - editing. Mayo is a stable emulsification of oil, egg yolk and lemon juice, that like a cut, doesn't stand alone. It's the connector, the + in A+B, or as Alan Watts said about human spirituality, "it's like the salt in the ocean and the glue in ink" - something that you don't see, but is intrinsic to it's nature. Like a good music video, a reel gets most of it's energy and meaning (or taste) through the synergy of music and images, propelled entirely by cuts.
Because of this rather simple arrangement - unrelated shots, music, connected by cuts, a reel is essentially an abstract form of filmmaking: it's not based on a narrative, doesn't need to establish continuity in space or time. Being free from these conventions allows you and your audience to work on a more unconscious level in the same way that good scatting (abstract rapping, really) carries you to a place between language/meaning and pure emotion, pure play.
In the 1910's Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov demonstrated a profound understanding of this in the Kuleshov Effect. He showed audiences images of a man's neutral expression against a bowl of soup (looks like chicken soup in fact), a funeral and a woman. Viewers brought meaning to the man's face that were not evident in the shots on their own: hunger, sadness, lust. So the viewer creates meaning through the juxtaposition of images. Add music to the mix and you have a potent cocktail of emotions: irony, humor, awe, sadness.
So you’ve made the salad, but what happened to the chicken shit? Let’s be honest, some of it probably made it in, along with some onions and pickled jalapenos, but it’s all working together through the magic of mayo.
You can find my reel here.
