reel season

It's the time of the year in LA when everyone in the entertainment biz is updating their reels. All the actors, cinematographers, composers, et al., are revising their video demos to feature their most recent work.....and indie director/editor types like me are needed both to provide and compile the source material. I like working on my friends' reels, a process which usually means blasting away every consideration of plot and sense from the original work and just finding that part where the subject looks good, or says something, in the interest of best showing off their ability to act/emote/speak English/etc. However, it's another facet of the LA-Life that makes you have to consider art in purely pragmatic, transactional terms, a video resume which basically reduces the value of the original movie to its relevance with your next potential job: I can do this, I can act like that, I can create this feeling, I'm the one that you want.
....It's a personal thing because at this point my movie, which is not yet officially available for public viewing, has been fodder for a good number of reels. Like a lot of independent movies, it is still waiting to be seen by a wide audience, but bits of it are already floating out there in the DVD players of agents and producers who are preparing for pilot season and looking for whatever they look for.

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