You need to chill out dude, same with every one of the hiring experts in this thread. You dont NEED to be shaving seconds off hiring process especially since these applicants could take hours/days to get back and sign a contract with back and forth.
Have you ever done this for a living?
Hint: We're "experts" because we do this a LOT, and we're giving advice on what makes artists stand out to us. You seem a little over-excited about this 30-second thing. WarrenM hit the nail on the head.
Heres the pixar modelling demo reel i was talking about. One turn to show the model, then another for the wireframe. Looks great and obviously gets him jobs as a modeller. Starts at 1 min.
I've just got back from the Develop Conference here in the UK, and I was talking to some guys I've previously worked with about this topic. Of all the guys (mostly modellers, some character, some environments), all the character guys said showreel everytime. The environment guys were kinda 50/50, some preferred reels, other just still folios.
I think its really down to the individual to decide what they think will be the best way to present their work. If they think reel, fine, but if they decide still folio, then that's fine too. The important thing is that both are treated equal. If you pass over someones application because they've provided a reel and you don't believe in them, then frankly that's somewhat short sighted, because you could be passing on someone really good.
However, if you don't favour reels (or still image folios), then I believe that criteria should be defined for people applying. That way there can be no confusion. When I was in the position to hire and fire (and yes, I have done the job), as a company we defined a criteria for people submitting work. We didn't mind reels over images (and vice versa), but we also set specific requirements - length of reel, types of lighting, turntables, no audio, no. of images etc, and made it clear that if people didn't follow the guidelines it could slow down their application.
This made a big difference and helped us refine our recruitment process, irrespective if people applied direct or via an agency.
Personally I've always favoured reels, but that's me. Still images can be great, but (like many the guys I spoke with said), stills can have that little bit of Photoshop magic sprinkled on them. Whereas in a reel, there's nowhere to hide. Turntables can show the asset in a pure form, and you can get a real idea of it's mass, shape, form and possible movement, especially with characters.
The points about time are valid though, as you can be literally swamped with 100's of applicants, which to me, is all the more reason for setting some application criteria. Unfortunately there isn't an industry standard or one size to fit all. This thread (despite some excellent advice) has kinda proved the differences in opinion.
Personally, I don't get the 30 secs thing. 'Impress me in 30 secs' (to me) is a really vague and ambiguous statement. It's like saying 'show me something cool'. What's cool, how is that defined? It's open to so much interpretation, especially with art.
When I was going through applicants, I always looked at every reel and every folio. The demand for people was always so high, we simply couldn't afford to not look at everyone. Easier said then done I admit, but submission guidelines made this alot easier and practical.
Personally, I don't get the 30 secs thing. 'Impress me in 30 secs' (to me) is a really vague and ambiguous statement. It's like saying 'show me something cool'. What's cool, how is that defined? It's open to so much interpretation, especially with art.
When I was going through applicants, I always looked at every reel and every folio. The demand for people was always so high, we simply couldn't afford to not look at everyone. Easier said then done I admit, but submission guidelines made this alot easier and practical.
If you open up any person's website, countdown 30 seconds and you'll see how much of the website you can actually browse through. You might actually get through the whole thing in less than 30 seconds.
Take pior's for example: (sorry pior, but your site is great) http://www.pioroberson.com/
You can see all his content in 30 seconds in a first pass through the site. You get the jist of his skill level immediately. I don't have to click submenus, load flash, load a video, etc. It's all right there.
Personally, I don't think I really want to hire someone that has to take a minute or two to impress me. Or someone that's like, 'wait until the end, trust me'. That's just bad presentation skills.
'30 seconds' is just a catchphrase. Sure I'll spend a good 4 or 5 minutes on a site browsing the art and examining the wires, but it's really that 30 seconds that is vital. Let's be perfectly honest here though; If you open up a portfolio site / reel and the very first thing you see is a terrible, terrible zbrush Dragonball Z sculpt, would you really want to continue on? Hopefully not. First impressions are everything and I want guys on my team that make those awesome first impressions. That being said, if I'm going into the portfolio knowing it's a student or a recent graduate, then I'm more forgiving.
Mind you, I don't think any of us are saying reels are bad, but for me personally, I'd rather see images first, then I'll investigate video second.
Hell, in an ideal world I'd rather have the meshes themselves so I can really break them down.
my advice is not to show your work to anyone, that way they can't criticise you in any way and it will make you appear mysterious/artistic like morrissey
i saw you touched upon what artwork you should have in your portfolio. I say do what you love. If you want to do space marines or big breasted clerics then do that. Your enthusiasm will show in your work and the quality will be higher.
If you force yourself to for example, Warcraft fan art because you want to work at blizzard but you're not into the actual artstyle, you'll do yourself a disfavor and it will show, i promise you.
Im sorry guys. Im not in the industry yet but from this thread ive learned that the recruiters are far more serious than neccessary and making a big deal out of nothing. You guys are literally counting down the seconds upon opening emails, then making blog posts about it, then posting about it.
I feel for you guys, you think that you need to hire 10 guys yesterday because more props need to be modelled or whatever. Its crunch time or what not. Just relax a bit, you take yourselves too serious and its tiring on the reader.
Then why the did you come in to offer advice on a character/environment modeling reel and continue to argue your point? I'm a professional Environment & Character artist in the game industry - reels are not common or expected in the game industry for those positions.
If it's something I have no knowledge or background in I typically stay out of the conversation or mention the fact that I'm not an expert on the topic.
You do have a point, why should we bother helping you?
I feel for you guys, you think that you need to hire 10 guys yesterday because more props need to be modelled or whatever.
No one has said that at all. Your portfolio doesn't get 30 seconds because they need to hire people as fast as possible. Your portfolio only gets thirty seconds because as an art director they probably have a thousand things to do today and that's all the time they can afford when they have 30 or 40 portfolios on top of their regular work.
These aren't recruiters or HR people you're talking to.
I feel for you guys, you think that you need to hire 10 guys yesterday because more props need to be modelled or whatever. Its crunch time or what not. Just relax a bit, you take yourselves too serious and its tiring on the reader.
That's just not it man, you're getting it backwards. We're not counting seconds - just saying that an applicant who doesn't go straight to the point in terms of presentation, sends the message that he/she is an unfocused worker.
For instance, let's say that someone has a portfolio website where the opening page forces you to sit through an un-skippable (30 seconds long or less !) intro animation. No matter how "good" that person is, the attitude conveyed by the website plays against that person in the hiring process, as it makes this applicant come across as someone not focused on efficiency and priorities. In a studio environment, such qualities are as valuable as artistic skills.
I worked in a smallish company as a lead Artist and I knew instantly who was interesting and who was not, by just a few seconds of opening the site... 30 seconds is too much time. Though if the person did interest me I could spend more than a few mins looking at the work.
This is a question of how quickly you can sell yourself to someone. Also even though a great simple website layout helps it does not really mean that that person will hold my interest. At the end of the day the work is what holds my interest... not the website or how good the person knows HTML or if it is on a blog. Though I admit I hate clicking to find work.
as for reels this really depends.
again if it is reel here are some bullet points to go for.
1. Show your stuff quickly
2. put your best work up first
3. Three great works is better than ten so so works.
4. Make it short 1-2 mins is enough more if needed, but has to be good
5. No crazy cameras in envio art please
6. 1 or 2 rotations of your model is enough
7. Wire frames please (if you present your wire frames please make a great wireframe mesh also... showing horrible wireframes is an instant death)
8. Less filters and fancy gimmicks
9. Supplement your reel with larger res shots of your work on your organized site.
10. Make a shot list with what you worked on. (some people really expect me to read peoples minds)
I do not follow all these... but I should honestly.
The point is not to shave seconds off the hiring process. The pieces of advice given here are all about suggesting that any applicant should make things as snappy and efficient as possible. Because any presentation that wastes the viewer's time (no matter how small that time is) can be perceived as sloppy and annoying.
Pior just nails it here - you want to appear efficient and focused when presenting your work - any work. Even for tech art folio sites I prefer a focused and efficient presentation where I can get an overview quickly.
If the overview convinces me, then I'll dig deeper and take more time - often much more than just 30 seconds, because the guy I'm reviewing is actually a potential candidate where we might spend money for flying the guy in, etc.
But spending 30 seconds for someone where you eventually find out the guy is in no way fit to be even considered is just too much time wasted.
Personally i really like demoreels depending on how they are presented; they are a great addition to anybodys portfolio as you can do some nifty/ fancy things.
Say for example i'm a modeler but i also want to show a little bit of after effects skill... they are great to combine in a demoreel.
However i totally understand the whole 30 seconds/ first impression business.
Basically what it comes down to is you have to make a great first impression so you get through the first round... then when in the second recruiters will take a closer / more lengthy look at your work in order to distinguish from others who got through the first round....
I've been looking at portfolios for about 7 years now... and can honestly say i don't spend longer than 1 minute if the presentation is shoddy.... unless the work immediately *wows* & even then i'm left wondering why somebody hasn't made that extra effort.
creating a great first impression literally means:
GREAT ARTWORK IN MY FACE NOW
if HR guys have 20 resumes to vet and 15 minutes to do it before they get on with the rest of their daily responsibilities, that means they have 45 seconds to get through each portfolio, right? you really think they're going to take the time to view a 2 minute reel? regardless of how good it might be, they just don't have the time for it.
so:
images, lots of images, in their face, the fewer clicks to get there the better. show reels should be supplementary to the images.
Even if the hiring manager has tons of time, I think in the overwhelming majority of situations you can tell at a glance if someone is qualified for the position.
Once you've narrowed down the pile to the people who are actually qualified then you can spend more time comparing the candidates portfolios against each other to see who is the best hire. But for a first pass at filtering candidates there's no real point...
Nick, I think you need to relax a bit mate and stop drinking so much caffeine. You say that 30 seconds is a lot? No. 30 sec is never a lot. Give a full minute for each applicant. Dont be an asshole man no offfense. If youre all hopped up on coffee and maybe nicotine well you could be bored at anything.
You need to chill out dude, same with every one of the hiring experts in this thread. You dont NEED to be shaving seconds off hiring process especially since these applicants could take hours/days to get back and sign a contract with back and forth. You dont NEED to hire a modeller at 12:30 vs 12:31. Talking about the horrors of a website not loading fast enough - what are you, on dial up? Get with the times dude. Im sitting on extremely fast internet and no website ever loads slow you feel me.
I don't drink coffee and I don't smoke. If you are new at this stuff then I will give you some advice. No-one will ever hire some one that calls them an asshole. I will never hire you now and I hire for a very large company that makes AAA titles. Learn to be professional, this is a small industry and reputation means a lot.
You seem to be missing the point, I am not counting to thirty and then laughing as I throw an applicant in the bin, but I have so much to do in my day that I get half an hour or so to review over 30 applicants. Each site gets a cursory look, I am actually a nice guy and review every applicant and always judge a person on more than one piece of work. I have hired over 30 juniors, I know how to assess someone's skill level quickly and I believe in giving a person a break if they look like they can step up to the challenge. In that 30 minutes I will weed out the poor candidates and review the others at length. After that they come in for at least one interview, sometimes two. No one gets hired in a minute.
If you get into the industry you will find out how time pressured it is. Wasted admin time is time I'm not making amazing assets and getting amazing work out of others.
P.S. We have 300 devs here uploading builds, streaming radio, fetching things off the server, sharing files etc. The network is sometimes slow. I have never worked at a studio with internet as quick as my home internet, sorry to break it to you but we operate in the real world.
cut the guy some slack. I did some stupid things too (and then hung my head in shame) when I was a newb (just like many others). Admit that you're wrong when you're wrong and show people that you can learn from your mistakes - that's professional too and my advice to the guy.
The first step to getting some slack is backing off from your position. He's still arguing hard that although he has no experience in this area whatsoever, everyone who does is wrong.
cut the guy some slack. I did some stupid things too (and then hung my head in shame) when I was a newb (just like many others). Admit that you're wrong when you're wrong and show people that you can learn from your mistakes - that's professional too and my advice to the guy.
well, "never" is a long time when you say you'll never hire someone. I don't expect him to realize the mistake right away, or else he wouldn't continue to argue, would he? But maybe once he gets more experience he'll realize what a blunder he committed. Wouldn't be the first person to whom that happens. Let's hope he got the message
Yeah, but good manners count in development! I have worked with people with poor social skills and it's hard work! Disagree me with me sure, I like a good argument, but don't call me an ass-hole! That's just rude and I'm not into hiring rude people. Anyway, never is as long as I remember! Life is too short to hold a grudge. I'm not counting you out Jedi just giving you a time out!
Im sorry guys. Im not in the industry yet but from this thread ive learned that the recruiters are far more serious than neccessary and making a big deal out of nothing. You guys are literally counting down the seconds upon opening emails, then making blog posts about it, then posting about it.
I feel for you guys, you think that you need to hire 10 guys yesterday because more props need to be modelled or whatever. Its crunch time or what not. Just relax a bit, you take yourselves too serious and its tiring on the reader.
You don't work in the industry, but our cumulative decades of experience in exactly what we're talking about doesn't matter because you've decided we're all wrong. Gotcha. You have the stubborn opinionatedness and misdirected piss and vinegar of the young, and I am now done with you. I'll go back to my job knowing what I'm talking about now.
If I have to bare a showreel, I'll click 3 or 4 times along the time slider to see if there's anything worth lingering on, essentially snapshotting it before moving on to the rest of the website / work anyway.
Primary page:- Name, Contact details, Role, Initial Impression
^ IE First page, the Best art in my face as soon as possible.
Secondary page:- Breakdowns, any misc stuff like concept art, motivation, methods/techniques. Anything that then shows you can back up your work technically.
On that note, this is still by far the best layout for entry artists i've came across for any portfolio.
You can jazz it up a bit, but at the end of the day, you want your art first and that's where the train stops. If you want, you can modify it so that clicking the images shows more complex breakdowns of it etc.
If i hit a welcome page, then a section page, then that page, then a breakdown page. I've wasted 4 clicks and however many seconds trying to get to your art. So in essence wasted your initial impression.
Videos have too many problems, too many uncertainties. Can i load it on a mobile? smart device? etc. What about bandwidth? will it take too long to load, buffering? It can break everything of your portfolio and your screwed. Images are just there, less shit can happen and you'll sleep better for it at the end of the day.
After thinking about it, I wanted to throw in one more thing.
The only reason I'm saying Images > Reel is because I'm typically talking about character artist roles as thats what I deal in.
But, to be even more specific. ie what wows employers ?
Art that looks like it can slot directly into the game / games / projects the company you are applying to - or EVEN BETTER.
One critical mistake I saw time and time again, is generalist folios. A folio containing a sci fi soldier, a monster, a dog, a barrel, a dumpster, an animated lamp, a piece of concept art.
If you think building a tonne of different shit and spraying your folio out to 50 + game companies is a good idea, best of luck to you *thumbs up*. More often than not - that is the worst possible decision you could ever make.
The other faux par is a folio filled with half finshed zbrush sculpts and nothing else remotely resembling anything that shows you know how to make a videogame character.
In a stack of 30 - 40 folios to look through, the generalist was instantly put right along side anyone who had a long loading, flash intro, welcome page style website. Closely followed by the showreel loading page. They NEVER made the first cut.
Any Art Director or Lead should be able to glance at a folio and instantly get all the info they need within seconds of seeing the page in order to make a decision that basically is 'okay lets put this person in the maybe pile while I get through this massive list of potentials'.
You NEED to make that first cut.
Like so many other vets in this thread have already said, you will get seconds to impress.
You can jazz it up a bit, but at the end of the day, you want your art first and that's where the train stops. If you want, you can modify it so that clicking the images shows more complex breakdowns of it etc.
This. I don't understand why so many people have sites wildly more complex than the above.
After thinking about it, I wanted to throw in one more thing.
One critical mistake I saw time and time again, is generalist folios. A folio containing a sci fi soldier, a monster, a dog, a barrel, a dumpster, an animated lamp, a piece of concept art.
Not sure I agree with this, I hired a generalist recently and am probably looking for another one soon. If you can model a man you can model a sofa! On huge teams specialism is a benefit but on smaller teams a generalist (or a good character artist who doesn't see making sofas as beneath them!) is a really good thing. The main mistake on most generalist websites is that all the work is average and nothing shines out, you still have to be shit hot!
With the industry the way it is there are tons of small teams doing interesting work who can't afford to hire specialists. Don't count them out of job searches by making a portfolio that only appeals to giant projects.
Some seem to think its either images or reel, while I look at it like this: Images is there for the first attention grab, reel is for the seeing "more". They work together, its not just one or the other. Giving options is always good in my book.
i`m neither an employer nor someone who has any say in the hiring process but i think your portfolio should contain assets that reflect things that you like to do. (Warning don`t make it too weird either)
First of all if you work on things that you like you`re going to do a much better job since you`re enjoying making it every step of the way.
And aside from that you`d be showing potential employers what you really like to do which gives them a hint of what you`d be most suitable for.
Replies
Have you ever done this for a living?
Hint: We're "experts" because we do this a LOT, and we're giving advice on what makes artists stand out to us. You seem a little over-excited about this 30-second thing. WarrenM hit the nail on the head.
Would you include that bit of info with your name at the top of your webpage?
I think its really down to the individual to decide what they think will be the best way to present their work. If they think reel, fine, but if they decide still folio, then that's fine too. The important thing is that both are treated equal. If you pass over someones application because they've provided a reel and you don't believe in them, then frankly that's somewhat short sighted, because you could be passing on someone really good.
However, if you don't favour reels (or still image folios), then I believe that criteria should be defined for people applying. That way there can be no confusion. When I was in the position to hire and fire (and yes, I have done the job), as a company we defined a criteria for people submitting work. We didn't mind reels over images (and vice versa), but we also set specific requirements - length of reel, types of lighting, turntables, no audio, no. of images etc, and made it clear that if people didn't follow the guidelines it could slow down their application.
This made a big difference and helped us refine our recruitment process, irrespective if people applied direct or via an agency.
Personally I've always favoured reels, but that's me. Still images can be great, but (like many the guys I spoke with said), stills can have that little bit of Photoshop magic sprinkled on them. Whereas in a reel, there's nowhere to hide. Turntables can show the asset in a pure form, and you can get a real idea of it's mass, shape, form and possible movement, especially with characters.
The points about time are valid though, as you can be literally swamped with 100's of applicants, which to me, is all the more reason for setting some application criteria. Unfortunately there isn't an industry standard or one size to fit all. This thread (despite some excellent advice) has kinda proved the differences in opinion.
Personally, I don't get the 30 secs thing. 'Impress me in 30 secs' (to me) is a really vague and ambiguous statement. It's like saying 'show me something cool'. What's cool, how is that defined? It's open to so much interpretation, especially with art.
When I was going through applicants, I always looked at every reel and every folio. The demand for people was always so high, we simply couldn't afford to not look at everyone. Easier said then done I admit, but submission guidelines made this alot easier and practical.
If you open up any person's website, countdown 30 seconds and you'll see how much of the website you can actually browse through. You might actually get through the whole thing in less than 30 seconds.
Take pior's for example: (sorry pior, but your site is great)
http://www.pioroberson.com/
You can see all his content in 30 seconds in a first pass through the site. You get the jist of his skill level immediately. I don't have to click submenus, load flash, load a video, etc. It's all right there.
Personally, I don't think I really want to hire someone that has to take a minute or two to impress me. Or someone that's like, 'wait until the end, trust me'. That's just bad presentation skills.
'30 seconds' is just a catchphrase. Sure I'll spend a good 4 or 5 minutes on a site browsing the art and examining the wires, but it's really that 30 seconds that is vital. Let's be perfectly honest here though; If you open up a portfolio site / reel and the very first thing you see is a terrible, terrible zbrush Dragonball Z sculpt, would you really want to continue on? Hopefully not. First impressions are everything and I want guys on my team that make those awesome first impressions. That being said, if I'm going into the portfolio knowing it's a student or a recent graduate, then I'm more forgiving.
Mind you, I don't think any of us are saying reels are bad, but for me personally, I'd rather see images first, then I'll investigate video second.
Hell, in an ideal world I'd rather have the meshes themselves so I can really break them down.
If you force yourself to for example, Warcraft fan art because you want to work at blizzard but you're not into the actual artstyle, you'll do yourself a disfavor and it will show, i promise you.
I feel for you guys, you think that you need to hire 10 guys yesterday because more props need to be modelled or whatever. Its crunch time or what not. Just relax a bit, you take yourselves too serious and its tiring on the reader.
Then why the did you come in to offer advice on a character/environment modeling reel and continue to argue your point? I'm a professional Environment & Character artist in the game industry - reels are not common or expected in the game industry for those positions.
If it's something I have no knowledge or background in I typically stay out of the conversation or mention the fact that I'm not an expert on the topic.
You do have a point, why should we bother helping you?
No one has said that at all. Your portfolio doesn't get 30 seconds because they need to hire people as fast as possible. Your portfolio only gets thirty seconds because as an art director they probably have a thousand things to do today and that's all the time they can afford when they have 30 or 40 portfolios on top of their regular work.
These aren't recruiters or HR people you're talking to.
That's just not it man, you're getting it backwards. We're not counting seconds - just saying that an applicant who doesn't go straight to the point in terms of presentation, sends the message that he/she is an unfocused worker.
For instance, let's say that someone has a portfolio website where the opening page forces you to sit through an un-skippable (30 seconds long or less !) intro animation. No matter how "good" that person is, the attitude conveyed by the website plays against that person in the hiring process, as it makes this applicant come across as someone not focused on efficiency and priorities. In a studio environment, such qualities are as valuable as artistic skills.
This is a question of how quickly you can sell yourself to someone. Also even though a great simple website layout helps it does not really mean that that person will hold my interest. At the end of the day the work is what holds my interest... not the website or how good the person knows HTML or if it is on a blog. Though I admit I hate clicking to find work.
as for reels this really depends.
again if it is reel here are some bullet points to go for.
1. Show your stuff quickly
2. put your best work up first
3. Three great works is better than ten so so works.
4. Make it short 1-2 mins is enough more if needed, but has to be good
5. No crazy cameras in envio art please
6. 1 or 2 rotations of your model is enough
7. Wire frames please (if you present your wire frames please make a great wireframe mesh also... showing horrible wireframes is an instant death)
8. Less filters and fancy gimmicks
9. Supplement your reel with larger res shots of your work on your organized site.
10. Make a shot list with what you worked on. (some people really expect me to read peoples minds)
I do not follow all these... but I should honestly.
Pior just nails it here - you want to appear efficient and focused when presenting your work - any work. Even for tech art folio sites I prefer a focused and efficient presentation where I can get an overview quickly.
If the overview convinces me, then I'll dig deeper and take more time - often much more than just 30 seconds, because the guy I'm reviewing is actually a potential candidate where we might spend money for flying the guy in, etc.
But spending 30 seconds for someone where you eventually find out the guy is in no way fit to be even considered is just too much time wasted.
On second thought, I'm finished with this discussion.
Cleaning up thread and getting back on topic.
Personally i really like demoreels depending on how they are presented; they are a great addition to anybodys portfolio as you can do some nifty/ fancy things.
Say for example i'm a modeler but i also want to show a little bit of after effects skill... they are great to combine in a demoreel.
However i totally understand the whole 30 seconds/ first impression business.
Basically what it comes down to is you have to make a great first impression so you get through the first round... then when in the second recruiters will take a closer / more lengthy look at your work in order to distinguish from others who got through the first round....
I've been looking at portfolios for about 7 years now... and can honestly say i don't spend longer than 1 minute if the presentation is shoddy.... unless the work immediately *wows* & even then i'm left wondering why somebody hasn't made that extra effort.
creating a great first impression literally means:
GREAT ARTWORK IN MY FACE NOW
if HR guys have 20 resumes to vet and 15 minutes to do it before they get on with the rest of their daily responsibilities, that means they have 45 seconds to get through each portfolio, right? you really think they're going to take the time to view a 2 minute reel? regardless of how good it might be, they just don't have the time for it.
so:
images, lots of images, in their face, the fewer clicks to get there the better. show reels should be supplementary to the images.
Once you've narrowed down the pile to the people who are actually qualified then you can spend more time comparing the candidates portfolios against each other to see who is the best hire. But for a first pass at filtering candidates there's no real point...
I don't drink coffee and I don't smoke. If you are new at this stuff then I will give you some advice. No-one will ever hire some one that calls them an asshole. I will never hire you now and I hire for a very large company that makes AAA titles. Learn to be professional, this is a small industry and reputation means a lot.
You seem to be missing the point, I am not counting to thirty and then laughing as I throw an applicant in the bin, but I have so much to do in my day that I get half an hour or so to review over 30 applicants. Each site gets a cursory look, I am actually a nice guy and review every applicant and always judge a person on more than one piece of work. I have hired over 30 juniors, I know how to assess someone's skill level quickly and I believe in giving a person a break if they look like they can step up to the challenge. In that 30 minutes I will weed out the poor candidates and review the others at length. After that they come in for at least one interview, sometimes two. No one gets hired in a minute.
If you get into the industry you will find out how time pressured it is. Wasted admin time is time I'm not making amazing assets and getting amazing work out of others.
P.S. We have 300 devs here uploading builds, streaming radio, fetching things off the server, sharing files etc. The network is sometimes slow. I have never worked at a studio with internet as quick as my home internet, sorry to break it to you but we operate in the real world.
Good advice.
You don't work in the industry, but our cumulative decades of experience in exactly what we're talking about doesn't matter because you've decided we're all wrong. Gotcha. You have the stubborn opinionatedness and misdirected piss and vinegar of the young, and I am now done with you. I'll go back to my job knowing what I'm talking about now.
The general consensus seemed to be that they were looking for simple things done really well, like a really good chair over yet another dragon thing
If I have to bare a showreel, I'll click 3 or 4 times along the time slider to see if there's anything worth lingering on, essentially snapshotting it before moving on to the rest of the website / work anyway.
Primary page:- Name, Contact details, Role, Initial Impression
^ IE First page, the Best art in my face as soon as possible.
Secondary page:- Breakdowns, any misc stuff like concept art, motivation, methods/techniques. Anything that then shows you can back up your work technically.
On that note, this is still by far the best layout for entry artists i've came across for any portfolio.
http://dan-art.com/SimpleSite.html
You can jazz it up a bit, but at the end of the day, you want your art first and that's where the train stops. If you want, you can modify it so that clicking the images shows more complex breakdowns of it etc.
If i hit a welcome page, then a section page, then that page, then a breakdown page. I've wasted 4 clicks and however many seconds trying to get to your art. So in essence wasted your initial impression.
Videos have too many problems, too many uncertainties. Can i load it on a mobile? smart device? etc. What about bandwidth? will it take too long to load, buffering? It can break everything of your portfolio and your screwed. Images are just there, less shit can happen and you'll sleep better for it at the end of the day.
Hazardous said it best, Images > Showreel.
The only reason I'm saying Images > Reel is because I'm typically talking about character artist roles as thats what I deal in.
But, to be even more specific. ie what wows employers ?
Art that looks like it can slot directly into the game / games / projects the company you are applying to - or EVEN BETTER.
One critical mistake I saw time and time again, is generalist folios. A folio containing a sci fi soldier, a monster, a dog, a barrel, a dumpster, an animated lamp, a piece of concept art.
If you think building a tonne of different shit and spraying your folio out to 50 + game companies is a good idea, best of luck to you *thumbs up*. More often than not - that is the worst possible decision you could ever make.
The other faux par is a folio filled with half finshed zbrush sculpts and nothing else remotely resembling anything that shows you know how to make a videogame character.
In a stack of 30 - 40 folios to look through, the generalist was instantly put right along side anyone who had a long loading, flash intro, welcome page style website. Closely followed by the showreel loading page. They NEVER made the first cut.
Any Art Director or Lead should be able to glance at a folio and instantly get all the info they need within seconds of seeing the page in order to make a decision that basically is 'okay lets put this person in the maybe pile while I get through this massive list of potentials'.
You NEED to make that first cut.
Like so many other vets in this thread have already said, you will get seconds to impress.
Make them count.
This. I don't understand why so many people have sites wildly more complex than the above.
Not sure I agree with this, I hired a generalist recently and am probably looking for another one soon. If you can model a man you can model a sofa! On huge teams specialism is a benefit but on smaller teams a generalist (or a good character artist who doesn't see making sofas as beneath them!) is a really good thing. The main mistake on most generalist websites is that all the work is average and nothing shines out, you still have to be shit hot!
With the industry the way it is there are tons of small teams doing interesting work who can't afford to hire specialists. Don't count them out of job searches by making a portfolio that only appeals to giant projects.
First of all if you work on things that you like you`re going to do a much better job since you`re enjoying making it every step of the way.
And aside from that you`d be showing potential employers what you really like to do which gives them a hint of what you`d be most suitable for.