Breakdowns

[Vladimir Zharov]

Hey guys, got a small question.
What is the purpose of shot breakdowns in a reel? To show your understanding of the compositing process or to show that a shot was done by you, not by someone else? Or both?
Thanks.

[pingking]

well, if its a good composite you can hardly say what you've done to picture. its then to show what you did

on the other hand its a way to show some techniques, e.g. multipass cg compositing, keying, roto, use of the 3d space, ...

and if you have a very clever or inovative way you solved a problem you can show it in the breakdown to show your skill

[Vladimir Zharov]

Thanks, nice ideas

[jeffdotson]

Breakdowns are very inspiring depending on what was accomplished on the shot, it shows people before & after which can really show off your skills.

[radders]

I think it changes depending on your level. When you lake some experience and are going for junior roles you can use them to show of techniques that you know. Once you have some experience and some good shots on your reel then recruiters will assume that you know all the important stuff and the breakdowns are more useful to show off what you did on the shot.

Either way, make them snappy. You don't need to show every CG pass you used and please don't ever include a screen capture of your 3D environment in Nuke or your node graph.

[Vladimir Zharov]

Thank you guys.
Am I right that the best way to present a shot breakdown is a simple fast 'slideshow' showing important passes and layers? Nothing too
superfluous, no distracting transitions, just still frames that appear one after another for several frames, yes?

and please don't ever include a screen capture of your 3D environment in Nuke or your node graph.

Yep, that works when a hardcore pro is running a compositing workshop, but the reasons why junior-mid artists include this stuff in their reel sometimes are obscure for me.