How do you create a great sound design showreel? – with Audio Director Tom Johnson

How do you showcase your sound design skills? Audio Director & Senior Sound Designer Tom Johnson (Supermassive Games/Sharkmob/Cloud Imperium Games/CCP/Improbable/Crytek & more) shares his insights on how to put together a great sound design showreel, and covers topics such as reel length, why small redesigns beat ambitious ones – and why you don’t have to record every sound yourself:

A note from Tom Johnson

Over the past few months, I have had the privilege to speak to a number of aspiring Sound Designers located all over the world.

While I am happy to continue having these one-to-one conversations, I thought I would write down a few tips which, from my point of view, could be helpful.

In this article, I wanted to give some insider tips on Sound Design Showreels.

As ever, these are all from my point of view, as a Sound Designer and Audio Director, so it’s always worth getting a second (and third, and fourth) opinion.

Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn directly should you want me to review your showreel, website, or get further insider tips from me.

First of all, let’s get this out of the way:

You NEED a Showreel.

I would argue that it’s as important as a CV, because it is ultimately the most immediate practical example of your skill and experience.

I would actually go as far as writing you might even need more than one reel showcasing different aspects of the work based on the specific job you are applying for.

For example, one Showreel might be focused on linear content, and another on Gameplay. Or a reel for Audio Redesigns and another for Audio Implementation.

I am not saying you NEED to have multiple reels though, but it is worth considering.

In any case, your showreel needs to be easily accessible and public. It is worth linking it on your LinkedIn Profile, and definitely having it in a prominent place on your website.

Of course, I appreciate that, when you are only starting, it might not be obvious what should be included in your Showreel.

So here are a few tips

Yes, re-designing sounds on existing media makes sense. And it can also be a really useful way to practice.

But I strongly advise against taking on “too much”.

From experience, taking on a 1 minute long (or longer) video from a major film or AAA game is pretty much a recipe for failure.

The odds are, you will spend two weeks (or more) on it and eventually give up once you realise what monumental task you’ve taken on. In the end, you will likely include it in your portfolio anyway, albeit with half the sounds missing.

I recommend taking on much (much, MUCH) smaller content. For example, 5- to 10-second-long videos of which the content is limited and focused, like a gun handling and shooting video from your favourite FPS, or a single combo from the main character in a Hack and Slash.

I personally would much rather see a portfolio consisting of 5 or 6 ten-second redesigns than a 60 second long redesign of a blockbuster movie with half the sounds missing.

Lately I have seen quite a few Portfolios lasting about 1 minute. Upon inquiry it seems to be that 1-minute showreels is what student are advised to produce and send out.

I personally don’t mind a longer showreel. Actually, I prefer it.

If 1 minute of content is all you have, no problem.

But I have seen several reels which whip from content to content at breakneck speed, leaving little time for the viewer to appreciate the work.

Speaking for myself, I am not SO busy that I can’t spare 2, or even 3 minutes watching and listening to people’s work.

So don’t worry if your showreel is closer to 2 or 3 minutes long, I will still happily watch it.

This piece of advice is more geared towards people who have collaborated with other Audio Professionals, but it can also apply to redesigns.

If you are lucky enough to have worked on a game, or any piece of media with a wider team (a composer, for example), I strongly recommend being clear what YOU did.

It’s fine if you only tracklayed Sound Effects, or only produced the final mix.

Ultimately, Audio Work tends to be collaborative.

But be clear about it. Add captions, or a title before each clip.

I feel like this one is worth repeating:

You do not need to record every single sound you use.

In a perfect world, as game Sound Designers, we would spend 50% of our time recording awesome original sounds and the other 50% making them sound perfect for the material.

My experience though is that a vast majority of sounds used in Games are created using sounds coming from Sound Libraries.

On AAA Games, I have been lucky enough to take part in foley recording sessions, and of course you are totally free to record as much material as you wish.

But the reality of the job is that we often have to produce sounds fairly quickly using clean recordings, and Sound Libraries are great for this.

I appreciate Sound Libraries are numerous and expensive, but nowadays, there are many online sound libraries with monthly subscriptions, so I recommend making use of them.

That’s especially true when you are just starting out, because experienced professionals have access to terabytes of sounds from libraries whereas beginners don’t.

I personally don’t really believe in extreme specialisation for Game Sound Designers, especially in the current climate.

It’s fine to have a preference in sound categories of course, but the reality is that a lot of the time our job takes us from one type of sound to another pretty seamlessly.

So it makes sense (at least to me) for your showreel to demonstrate versatility.

This is also important because, often, different sound types require different approaches and techniques. A showreel showcasing variety also highlights technical proficiency.

This can be tricky when you have been working on a bunch of unreleased (or cancelled) projects. And please, do not release material which has not been cleared or is under NDA.

But if you have new material, or if you have been lucky enough to be part of a project which has been released, do include it!

If you are a bit unsure, contact the client or the company you produced the work for and get clarity over what you can and cannot post.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, these are only my opinions. And I would encourage my peers to comment and express their disagreement to add perspective to this article.

And as ever, I am more than happy to discuss things in one-to-one calls with anyone who might need more information.