Showreel Advice
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Paul Wilkes is the Recruitment Director at Escape Studios so he’s in the perfect position to know what studios look for and how applicants can increase their chances of being successful. Presentation Graphic design and interface design are skills in themselves. If you don't have them, avoid interactive presentations. File Formats/Compression Keep it simple. No one wants to have to download obscure codecs or file viewers. Play to your strengths Include your best work and drop anything that’s not up to scratch. Critiquing work, your own or others, is an important skill, so be brutal. If you're not happy with something, it probably shouldn’t be in there. Show a range of skills but keep focus As a graduate or junior, it's important to show that you’re developing a broad base of art skills, but try to focus on your strengths. You need to recognise that jobs are becoming more and more specialised. Texture sheets, wire frames and annotation Showing how your work is put together proves understanding of the techniques you use. Show textures as separate images and your models as wireframes, and include some text explaining which techniques you used. No offensive material Keep it to yourself. There’s no point risking that you will offend someone before they even meet you. Keep it fresh It’s disappointing to see candidates whose work hasn’t changed from year to year. You should be constantly updating and improving your portfolio. Sketchbooks Some sketch work can be helpful in showing how you developed an idea, but keep it to a minimum. Do, however, take your sketchbooks to an interview. Work in Progress This is fine in moderation, but a portfolio full of unfinished work will not give a good impression.
[Images - Top Right: Douglas Mcpherson, Bottom Right: Christian Rakovsky]
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