Hey guys, long time lurker, first time poster here.

I have a question about putting together my resume for a prominent video game developer. I have an in to the company, I just want to make sure everything is proper.

The job is a sound fx position which I am somewhat familiar with because I come from a background of doing audio and fx for live performances, but not for games. My contact says that the best way to make an impression on the audio guys is to take existing footage from a game or movie, strip the audio, and lay in my own version.

For the people that have done this before, how should I go about creating the video in your opinion? Should I just take a clip, strip the audio and thrown in my own audio over it? Or should I go the whole nine yard and replace the fx files from a game, and record game play footage? Also, how long should it be? How long is too long?

Thanks!

Game audio would make a better demo disc, IMO. You need to demonstrate mastery of the audio formats and requirements of games.
BTW, this specialist question will probably get better answers in the audio forum. If I'm proved wrong, I can move it back to For Beginners.

Snag a random gameplay video from a publicly available website, strip ALL the audio away, and add your own audio to the video. The people looking at your resume are not going to care if you recorded the original video, they will only be listening to your audio and how it fits with the gameplay.

Include a link to the original video for comparison. Without a reference to the original the people examining your portfolio may not trust the audio was created by you. Make sure it is clear you replaced the audio and that it is not a clip of a game you have previously worked on. Only use audio you created. If you plagiarize the assets, someone like me will find out.

Don't just provide a video clip in your portfolio. Make sure you have an assortment of plain audio assets available as well. Make sure they are varied; a couple menu sfx, an engine, some footsteps, some voice over, and a couple other random sfx are much more impressive than 50 bullet sfx. I've thrown out over half the portfolios I've listened to because all the assets sounded the same.

Not everything needs to be 44.1kHz stereo (or 5.1 for that matter). When working on the PS2 I was far more impressed with people who could make great sounding sfx at 12-22kHz or lower and knew when things should be mono than by those who made everything 44.1kHz. This may vary depending on who is looking at your portfolio and what platform they develop on.