Demo Reel Advice

Hey Dan
Good question!

- Keep everything SIMPLE, no fancy camera moves, no out of the box effects.
- Only show your BEST WORK (don't put work on just because you have it)
- Don't show a model or sequence twice. Allow enough time to show what you need without boring the viewer, but never show it again later on just to fill in space. If people want to see it again, they know where the rewind button is.
- Adapt your reel to the skillset you want to apply for. eg: modeling, vfx, rigging.
- Make the first thing on your demo reel the best thing they see.
- Don't add a credit list that says Jo Bloe - Director, Jo Bloe - Animator, Jo Bloe - Sound Engineer, Jo Bloe - Idiot...

The best way to show a model is to do a turntable. This is not always the case, but it is easy to view, simple and this is the way you will show your work on a daily basis at most jobs.
- Start with a rendered wireframe (one sided mesh)
- An ambient occlusion style render (with displacement if available)
- Finished model (textured/shaded/lighting)

You can break the textured/shaded/lighting one up separately, but it will probably look better on a single still frame.

Feel free to add a checker board texture to the turntable render, maybe after the wireframe. Make sure it looks nice though. There is nothing worse than seeing a model which has a contrasting tile pattern repeated 1000x creating a flickering effect.
If you don't want to show a checker, then you can just as easily edit in a snapshot of your UVs.
Most importantly, resist the urge to do a dozen turns on the turntable. Judge it yourself but don't make it too long.

A couple of other things to remember...
The person watching your demo reel will be very busy and if they are actively hiring they will have a mountain of DVDs to watch. It's brutal, but you can usually tell someone's ability in the first 3 seconds of a demo reel. Show the viewer something that makes you stand out from all the other students! Show that you understand how to model a character and why you chose to do displacement in certain areas instead of bump. If you want a job in VFX, then try to recreate a real world object and show the reference images you used. If you want to do feature animation work, then create a stylised real world object or character.

Remember that the person hiring is going to have a good idea of what to expect from a student, regardless of prior job experience or other artistic skills. So don't feel obliged to put heaps on your reel. I have probably already told you, but I hired a person whose reel was less than 30sec long. It contained a single turntable of a model accompanied by a list of his previous jobs and a nice resume. On the other hand, I have lost count of the amount of demo reels I've received which don't even show any modeling on them...you can guess where they ended up!

I hope that helps!
Keep it simple, keep it short, keep it looking professional...

cheers
Andrew