Hello!

this is my first post in this forum, my name is Giorgio I'm a 26 yo sound designer from Italy and I'd like to share my new portfolio. It's my first project in game audio and I'd love to receive any kind of feedback

Thanks for sharing! A few ideas or tips for you to consider right off the bat: 

- demo reels should be SHORT. Consider this an introduction to you and your work, not your magnum opus. Your sound design video is 9 minutes long and I can pretty much guarantee that most hiring audio directors or managers are not going to watch all of your demo reel. They just don't have enough time. I've watched several audio directors/managers/studio execs evaluate someone's demo reel. They spend seconds on it. Seconds. The average time I've seen many-a-audio director spend on a demo reel is about 20-30 seconds. They pop around to various points of the reel at random to see if anything jumps out at them. If something does, they put that submission into a "review more later" pile. If nothing does - they move on to the next submission. Demo reels should be - at max - about 2-3 minutes long. I've certainly broken this rule in the past but a 9 minute demo reel is REALLY pushing it. My fear is the current slow pacing and conservative sound design of your reel would make most audio directors move on. In fact, in many ways your demo reel comes off more like a tutorial and explanation and less of an actual portfolio reel. This brings me to point 2: 

- start out with your best, most interesting stuff. I've watched 35 seconds of your demo reel and the thing I've heard so far the most is footsteps. No offense, but footsteps are not hard to create and they don't do much to distinguish you from the many other sound designers out there. I did hear some whooshes as well but again - those are not super unique. 

- the binaural nature of your demo reel is cool but you don't show it off in a very compelling way, to be honest with you. Basic ambient sounds like wind, bird calls/nature/etc are very easy to make and setting up roll offs within Fmod is definitely a perk but your demo reel should really show off your absolute best stuff. 

- remove the full screen text slates. They take up too much time and the font is really, really small. Plus the white text over the gradient colored background can make it less easy to read. Keep in mind that most people watching this reel will already know how Fmod, interactive audio and binaural sound design works. They don't need to it be explained to them and this is taking up super valuable time that should be used for you just showing off how great your sound design can be. For example, I'm currently 1:38 into your demo reel and so far I've only heard footsteps, wind and birdcalls. I eventually skipped around and saw a few points about how you set up barriers to emulate occlusion and other environmental factors that change how a sound emitter behaves based on the player's perspective.  

I'm really not trying to be rude, even though it's probably coming off this way. Your demo just really needs to be trimmed down, streamlined and made into something that really makes the viewer want to contact you and hire you right then and there! 

I think you could trim this down into a 2-ish minute long montage and put in a caption that says "all demo audio is implemented into Fmod and Unreal and captured as it's experienced in-game." That one sentence tells a hiring manager or audio director exactly what they need to know, will impress them that you can implement audio and save so much more time. 

I hope this helps! Best of luck. 

wow this answer was really everything I was looking for: an advice of someone that knows more than me. These words are gold, thank you for your reply, I will make my best to make something shorter and better sounding than this.

Awesome response! This kind of attitude will take you far as you continue to learn, grow and tackle more things. Best of luck! 

Nate, I have a question. I thought Giorgio's video displayed a good solid amount of technical background knowledge. And to me it seemed like the way he put the video together would have been useful for something. 

Aside form the length of his video, Is the main idea behind your critiques that the elements he uses to illustrate the middleware and process aren't sophisticated enough to demonstrate an advanced enough skill set? Or is it more that they just don't care how its done... and they will only judge it by the final presentation?

Could a video like this be used as a supplement to a demo reel? I'm asking because I'm contemplating how to put mine together but I don't have enough material to form into a meaningful one yet.

Hey, 

The biggest issue I saw with his demo reel back in Sept. was length. Most audio directors are just not going to spend that much time reviewing someone's demo. And what you show should be really interesting and unique. As I said in my initial post, showcasing footsteps isn't really that impactful or unique as there are literally tons of footstep foley libraries out there and the actual implementation of footstep audio isn't as complex as some of the other types of in-game audio. 

In-house directors would care about how things are done, for sure. But freelance clients much less so. They usually just want to know can you work with my engine or can you hit the needed artistic mark as well as my budget and schedule? In many cases while freelancing, I don't even implement the audio. I just do the work, send the files over and then get paid. 

I do think this video could be a great supplemental video but that would only apply in certain situations. 

Good job!

On 11/10/2018 at 4:57 PM, nsmadsen said:

As I said in my initial post, showcasing footsteps isn't really that impactful or unique

Ah. I understand. What are some examples of types of sounds they WOULD find unique? Even if you haven't personally done them, what are some things those guys don't see on your run-of-the-mill reel?

Let's say for example you've done a neat explosion effect that is more unique than the standard, run-of-the-mill explosion foley. Or perhaps there's a warp element. Or a cool spell element sound you've created. Footsteps in particular, along with basic nature ambiences (i.e. babbling brook, wind, bird calls, footsteps) can all be made quickly and easily. And if you think about it - most tend to sound alike from game to game whereas other game elements can sound quite unique. 

Very interesting!! 

Another thing I'm not clear on:

Does it matter if you've put them in a game vs you CAN put them in a game.

The first requires you to show that you've been hired and successfully created them for a game. The second is  essentially no different than having created them for a movie, and dumping them on a linear youtube reel. Essentially hoping they'll hire you on the basis that you have the knowledge to create cool stuff if asked to. I hope that question makes sense.

Basically I'm asking if merely demonstrating the skill (of sound design) in a video is enough to get you going. Since he video isn't a game.