This week, I was sent a video reel from a mentalist.
It was sharp, the colors vibrant, the people astonished, the music dramatic. Only one problem…
None of the reel people were real.
All the astonished guests had that distinctive look on their faces, slightly too polished, too perfect. Every single audience member was Hollywood beautiful, without the distinctiveness that real actors and actresses carry in their facial features.
I understand the temptation to take the shortcut!
Putting together a reel that gets you booked is none of these things: easy, fast, inexpensive.
It’s not something a speaker can do in their home office over a weekend, or even over a month. It’s something that takes months, or more likely, years, to accomplish properly.
The speaker has to be booked at enough events to create a variety of clips. But booking those events isn’t enough… he then has to find, qualify, and invest in a high-quality videographer to capture the reel from multiple angles: tight shots, wide shots, and audience shots.
And then the speaker has to repeat this process in different cities across the country, finding a worthy videography professional in each market he speaks in.
And then, only then, can the speaker begin the process of sourcing the right video production company who can tell not just a story, but the RIGHT story about you as a speaker or performer by sifting through the hundreds of hours of footage provided to them.
It’s a significant investment of money, in the company who will do the work to tell your story in video, and in all the videographers along the way around the country who captured these moments over years.
For me personally, my ratio of time to output is probably close to one year for every one minute of the final reel. It easily took 3.5 years to create this 3.5-minute video. Because even though I’d performed at hundreds of events, the truth is that one, not every client allows you to film; two, not every event will have a beautiful enough stage/lighting setup to earn the spot; and three, you just might not be able to find a videographer to cover that event.
So when I finally shared my reel this year, I was proud of it. Every person you see reacting in it was really in that room. Every client whose event appears in it said yes to letting me share it. And a big thank you goes to the team at Outspeak, who took years of footage from all those cities and found the story in it.
If you’re an event planner, you’re about to bring someone in person to stand in front of your people, and the video is usually the first place you decide whether you can trust them. The audience reactions in a reel are your proof that this person connects with a room like yours.
So please look deeper before you book anyone (including me!). Take a good look at the faces in the crowd. Real audiences are a little messy. The lighting isn’t perfect, someone in the back is checking their phone, and the people look like people you’d actually sit next to at a conference. Then look past the video. Read the speaker’s reviews, see whether real clients have posted about them, and get on a video call with them before you sign anything.
If you’d like to see what 3.5 years, a lot of cities, and a lot of wonderful clients look like in 3.5 minutes, here’s my speaking reel. Every face in it is real.