I’ve had many photo shoots and videos put together of my dance work over the years. Creating my own dance reel, however, is a long time coming! I was finally able to put one together, and honestly, it didn’t take long and was really fun to male! At the end of the vid, I was even able to include a moment where I’m in the creative process on a visual art piece.
I’m not sure why making my reel myself took so long. Was I nervous about the outcome? Was I not sure I could pull it off given my like of time or how much talent/skill set I thought creating one would require? And I must admit, I pride myself of having a decent level of skill but still wasn’t sure I could pull this off. But I did!
And so can you! Here is my creative process for creating my reel – I’m now trying to decide how often I will create a new one to keep , your portfolio up to date…
Enjoy!
1. Document
Make sure you film, record, document and capture anyway you can your performances, behind the scenes, parts of your creative process, rehearsals and so forth. I make sure whenever I’m creating, I record what I’m doing in some way. W
Whenever I perform or minister (I dance in the church often) I make sure I have a camera on hand whether it’s my DSLR, mine snd/or my husband’s iPhone as well as my kids… I often have one or two tripods as well so I can capture different angles from multiple phones. I make sure that whatever I do, gets captured.
2. Sit & Sort
Now it’s time to sit down and go through all the footage to sort what you want to include in your reel, what story you want to tell and how you want to tell it. In most cases you will use one continuous track, maybe two which pulls all of the clips together. Explore what this may look like for you as you review your footage and field work.
Having trouble choosing your content? It’s helpful to create boundaries to help you narrow in on your content. A teacher/dancer once told me that without boundaries there is no creativity. What does this mean? It means without framing, some level of construct which could create a box and subsequent challenge… that even within that you can figure out a way to make something as you work with what you got.
So for example, you may decide on only using content where you performed outside, or only performed in pants or only in red or maybe even only using percussive music although you will be changing your audio.
3. Put It All Together
Overall you may want to aim for your final video to be less than five minutes and anywhere between 2-3 1/2 minutes is good length. Mine is actually about five minutes and I enjoy watching it every time!
Ideally, clips anywhere from 10-20 seconds is a good length Make sure you you use strong clips that capture who you are as a dancer and what you want viewers to see. When you edit snd piece one. Lip to the next, it’s good to make sure the prices flow together. What does that mean?
It means that between the two clips, one can end where a movement ends on a particular beat while in the next clip, the next move starts on the next beat. Another idea is to make sure your movement is on the same side in the first clip and that continues to the next and so on. Another idea is to ensure the movement from one clip to the next is a continuation of movement like a step going in the same direction or a turn in the same direction creating a continuous flow and continuity in movement.
Ensure the music or sound you use, that the copyright on the music if you did not create it is cleared. There are many websites that offer royalty free music and web[sites which you can purchase the music license for and use in your work.
4. Share
Make sure you not only save it on a hard drive but also in the Cloud like in Google a drive for example so you can not only have a backup but also be able to access it from anywhere, especially your mobile which will allow you to share it across multiple social channels more conveniently.
You can first start by uploading your video to Google Drive, Vimeo or YouTube, this way you can not only have your video backed up, Vimeo and YouTube are platforms where people can located your content and Google Drive, Vimeo and YouTube all allow you to pull links for your content that you can share on your website, include in your email signature or add to your CV or resume for instance. Another tip I’d love to share is to create a shortened link (one you can also track analytics on like through Bitly) of your video that you can easily share on IG or Twitter when you micro blog.