There’s no official answer. If there was, who would get to decide, Spielberg? I doubt Stevie’s ever even seen a showreel. Or a demo reel for that matter.
Anyway, for me, they do mean slightly different things.
The most obvious being: Americans tend to say ‘demo reel’ and us English tend to say ‘showreel’.
But more importantly than that, a showreel implies showing the work that you’ve already done. Whereas a demo reel implies that it demonstrates what you can do.
With the growing trend of actors creating reels from scratch, that would tend to fall under the ‘demo reel’ category, even though I call my service ‘Daniel Johnson’s Showreels From Scratch Service‘. I guess I didn’t really think it through at first.
And that, to me, is a demo reel.
A showreel is what you create when you’ve done a heap of work and you want to splice the best pieces together to show to people.
But then again I often edit showreels together that I’ve also shot additional material for. So what are they? Demo Showreels? Demreels? Showdemoreels?
I guess the point is, it doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that you act good.
We can call it whatever you want. But if you’re interested, I can help you show people who you are and what you can do as an actor. If you think you’re funny but never get seen for the comedies, I can create that material. Together we can show those casting directors that they’re darn wrong, and yes you can be funny! Or if you want to show people you’re great with fast dialogue, or with being a lawyer, or whatever your thing is — we can create it!
Find out more about my acting demo showreel service by clicking on that part of this sentence you just read that looks clickable.
Or throw me an email at dj@danieljohnsonfilms.co.uk. Or tweet me @danieljohnsonuk. Or pop by the office for a cup of tea.