SCENES: Try and find scenes where your acting is good but also where you're driving the scene. You can drive it as the crying prisoner or as the hard-nosed detective. Try to find scenes where you are the center of the action. Where you're active, even if you're just sitting around. If your demo is of the non-acting variety, try to find clips where you are making good TV happen. If you ask a brilliant question that provokes a powerful answer, or if you hit a particularly cogent part of your presentation that makes people say, "I never thought of it that way," bring that stuff in.

ONE-LINERS: If you get a laugh, make a great statement, button a long passage with an articulate zinger, and you do it in a clip that only takes a couple of seconds, mark it down and bring it in. One-liners can be used as transitions, montage elements, introductory elements, and as energizers throughout your demo.

MONTAGE SHOTS: Not everyone needs a montage, and some people just don't like 'em. We think it's a good idea to include a montage IF: you are a super sexy model type and want to focus in on your good looks, a character actor who plays a wide variety of roles with a lot of different looks, or if you have a good amount of emotional moments that aren't shown in your scenes.

Good montage images are any shots where the camera is mainly on YOU and you're NOT talking. You could be laughing, crying, fighting, looking foxy, turning away from the camera, canning peaches, etc.

We can use most formats of tape but we cannot use HD, Digital8, D2, or Digibeta. We can rent any of those decks but the you're gonna have to pay for it. If you happen to have a camera that can play a tape you need, feel free to bring it in and we'll hook it up. We'd be more than happy to recommend a place to have these formats transferred if you're interested, just give us a call.

Prepare your material like this:

TAPE: Cue your tape to the start of your scene. Simple as that. If there is more than one scene on the same tape, rewind to 0:00:00 then find your first scene and notate the time code. If it's ten minutes and seventeen seconds into the tape, your counter will read 0:10:17. Do the same with the next scene. If you have four scenes on a tape, bring in a list that looks like this example:

* 0:10:17 - I kick Robert DeNiro in the nuts then do a monologue.
* 0:35:15 - I slap a trained monkey. He slaps me back. I do a monologue.
* 0:55:12 - I take a pull on a cigar and scowl. Good for a montage shot.
* 1:22:13 - I pour a milkshake over Clint Eastwood's head. Monologue.

After you've made the list, rewind your tape to 0:00:00.

DVD: DVD functions much the same as tape as far as the time code goes. Find your scenes and notate the time. The main difference is that you cannot cue a DVD so don't even try. It will only lead to heartbreak. Also, if your DVD comes from a home DVD recorder, make sure your disks have been "finalized." If you don't know what that means - just make sure that you can play the DVD on a plain old dvd machine. One that did NOT do the recording. If you can play it, then we probably can too.

TIVO OR DVR: If you have something recorded on a TiVO or other DVR, bring in the box - yes, the whole box - and we can transfer your scenes directly from your unit into our computer. Just cue up your scenes basically as described above. DVRs are usually very good about providing time code so making your list will be easy.

• MAKE SURE YOU BRING IN YOUR POWER CABLE AND REMOTE CONTROL as these boxes are useless without the remote.

• We can work with almost all DVRs but we have had some trouble with Comcast boxes so please keep that in mind and have a secondary source for your material if your DVR comes from Comcast.

iPOD: If you have video on your iPod - whether a show purchased on iTunes, a podcast, or a DIY distribution - we can use it. Just note your time code as with the DVDs. If you have an off-brand MP3/video player, you'll have to bring in your own TV connectors too.

DIGITAL FILES SUCH AS QUICKTIME, AVI, MPEG: While it feels like bringing in digital files will make things move faster, that's very rarely the case. Most digital files must be transcoded into an edit friendly form - that's often time consuming and sometimes it doesn't work at all. Usually the fastest medium is the good ol' DVD.

• If you MUST use digital files try to use Quicktime, it's the easiest to transcode. If you want to get all technical and stuff, create a Quicktime with a DV/DVCPRO codec or AVID DV codec.

• Not recommended: raw MPEG, .WMV (Windows Media), or Flash. If you have a file in one of these disfavored formats and you absolutely can't get it any other way, we can try to work with it but results won't be guaranteed and you'll have to pay for the time spent figuring it out. We're super smart like robots from the future, but even the Terminator had trouble finding Sarah Conner.

Bring 3 choices of music. Try to find something that helps describe you or the image that you're trying to sell.

Can't choose? Take a minute to figure out what exactly it is that you're selling and find music that goes with it. If you're an 'independent film girl' you're gonna want something gritty that reflects your down and dirty image. If you're Mr. Sit-com, search for something with the energy that matches. Does Britney Spears work with your collection of emotionally disturbed heroin addict characters? Does Rob Zombie really evoke "Wacky Neighbor"? It can be an old or new song, with or without lyrics. Avoid those Top-10 hits that get played over and over and over again. Most people are gonna be sick of them and is that really the reaction you want?

Not all demos need music but it's a good idea to be prepared in case yours will benefit from it. If you find that you've been losing sleep because you can't choose a song for your demo - we will try and help. We have a decent sized music library and the magic of I-Tunes so we'll do what we can to suggest something for you.

The first thing we'll do when you come into the editing bay, other than say hello, is digitize your footage. This is the process of turning your pile of tapes and DVDs into computer information so we can edit it. This is done in real time so we'll be able to talk about your footage and formulate a demo reel strategy while we digitize. Do you want this demo reel to get you an agent? A Speaking gig? On a reality show? A deal with a Korean tool manufacturer? Every demo reel is tailor made and this helps us target your needs with laser accuracy.

So now that we have the pieces, what can you expect when we put them together? There are basically two ways to make a reel. Choose your approach.

THE SECRET HANDSHAKE APPROACH - We edit and design the demo to a rough draft, then client and editor tweak it together until you, the client, are happy with the finished product.

YOUR APPROACH - You design your demo, and Secret Handshake does the editing. If you have editing experience, or are very confident in your ideas - this is the choice for you. You come up with all the ideas and we work the magic editing box.

You're probably thinking "Hey, can we do a little bit of both approaches? You know, collaborate?" We don't recommend a collaborative approach in the rough editing phase. It doesn't get you results that are any better and it always takes a lot more time and, therefore, money.

The vast majority of clients choose The Secret Handshake Approach because we provide an objective eye. We have edited every kind of demo reel there is - our experience is deep, our judgment is good, and our results are proven. Don't be scared, we never force our opinions on you and we promise that you'll never walk away unhappy.

Once the editing is done, we can make you a screener DVD so that you can show it to friends, family or representation. Your digitized material will be left on the computer for 5 business days in case you want to make further changes. After that, your demo is put into our digital archives so it can be retrieved and updated at a later time. Speaking of updating...

So now you have an awesome demo reel but you just booked a kick-ass part on Ugly Betty as her jive-talking therapist, or perhaps you've been hired to interview celebs at the red carpet premier of Indiana Jones 6, Revenge of Short Round. You want to put your new stuff on your reel. What happens now?

We keep everything in a digital archive for just such purposes. You can edit your new stuff into your old reel seamlessly and without any quality loss because storing data digitally allows us to start editing right where we left off the last time, whether it's been one week or one year since we saw you last. This also means you don't have to bring back the tapes or DVDs we dealt with in previous edit sessions. Just bring in the new footage.

There is no charge to put your demo into our archives. When you come back to update your reel, just let us know you want your material pulled out of the archive and we will do that for only $25.

If you make a DVD master and copies with us, we will archive your DVD master at no charge. This means that if you run out of DVD copies you don't need to bring your master back to us to make copies. Just give us a call, make your order, and we'll call you when your stack of fresh DVDs is ready for pickup.