Problem with my demo reel [closed]

Question

Hi everyone,

I made a demo reel this week as I want to try to get a sound editing job in London. I had 25 blank DVDs printed with a design I made. I made a nice custom menu in iDVD, to allow the user to choose between playing the reel or viewing a mini version of my CV, complete with 30 seconds of background sound design. My plan was to go to London today with 10 or so burnt DVDs and drop it off in person at a selection of post-pro houses. Unfortunately I burnt a test DVD last night and tried it in my home sitting room DVD player and it sounded pretty terrible. The sound was muffled, like I had a bad cold or something and listening to it gave me a sort of uncomfortable feeling. It seemed very lacking in upper-mid to high frequencies. The sound system in there is OK at best, but DVDs played on it usually sound a lot better than this.

The reel sounds fine to me when I play it on my computer over my ADAM A7s, whether on the quicktime video or the DVD. The scenes I took from the feature I worked on sounded great at the cinema during the premier. I don't have any other way of testing the DVD on a more normal sound-system until the weekend when I can test it on a friend's home system.

Until then I would really appreciate it if anybody would watch/listen to my reel (I uploaded it to Vimeo) and tell me whether it sounds ok or if I need to tweak it? Any other comments or suggestions are welcome of course. The link is here.

Thank you for reading,

Joe

Answer 1

Just to say that I fixed the DVD problem - the DVD player was using pro-logic decoding on the stereo track. I didn't notice the sound coming out the rears (doh!) when I tested but obviously it was creating phase problems hence the stuffy/uncomfortable feeling. I really hope other DVD players don't default to pro-logic when playing a simple stereo DVD! Is there something I need to do when burning the DVD to prevent this? So I guess I answered my own problem. C&C on the showreel still welcome :) - Joe.

Answer 2

@hideo

I did enjoy your demo reel. I do have some feedback for you. I feel that the game clip stands out negatively in your favor. All of your other pieces show fluid and seamless sound but when we listen to the game clip it doesn't sit quite as well. I think it would be nice to hear more foley of the fabric and character movements. Having the sound of snow crunching will sell the idea more. Also there are times when weapons are being moved or dropped and there are no assets for them as well. Other than that I did enjoy your reel.