Portfolio and showreel
Video editor demo reel tips.
Prove the cut, not the camera.
An editor's reel is not judged on the image. Someone else lit it and someone else graded it. It is judged on rhythm, on whether a story holds together, on sound, and on range. Here is how to build a reel that proves those four things, when to send full pieces instead, how to treat the mix, and how to keep one link while the reel changes underneath it.
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By uncompressed.io · Updated September 2026
The short answer
An editor’s reel proves four things:
rhythm, story, sound and range.
Open with your strongest cutting, not your prettiest shot. Cut to the sound, not over it. Let at least one moment play long enough to show you can hold a scene. Show more than one kind of work. Label what you did on every project. Mix the audio as carefully as the picture. Then host the reel at one link you never have to change.
Rhythm
Where the cut lands, and why. A producer is watching your timing, not the lens. Pick sequences where the timing is a decision you can defend: a match on action, a cut held a beat longer than expected, a build that pays off.
Story
A montage of great shots proves someone had a good camera. A scene that plays with a setup and a payoff proves you can structure. Give the reel at least one stretch where the viewer follows something, not just watches it.
Sound
Editors are judged with the sound on. Dialogue that sits clean over music, a hard cut on a sound cue, a pre-lap that pulls the viewer into the next scene: these are editing, and a reel that buries them under one music track hides half the work.
Range
Show the work you want more of, and enough variety to prove it is a choice: a commercial beat next to a dialogue scene, a fast social cut next to a slower documentary moment. Range is not everything you have ever cut.
Label what you did
Every project on the reel needs a plain credit: the title, the director or client, and your role. If you cut it but someone else graded and mixed it, write editor, not editor and finishing. A lower third or an end card works on screen, and the film’s description carries the full list. Anyone who worked on the spot can check the credit, so a vague credit costs more than an honest one.
Reel or full pieces
The reel gets you watched,
and the full piece proves you can finish.
A montage is a trailer for you. It cannot show pacing over minutes, and pacing over minutes is often the job. Send both, and keep them as separate films so each one has its own link.
Only Public films appear on your profile page; Unlisted films open by link only. A Password film shows a gate before the player and does not play inside an embed. Get the client's permission before hosting any unreleased piece, gated or not.
On your profile page each film takes one of four tags: Hero at full width, Featured at half width in pairs, Standard three across, and Hidden for films kept off the page. One workable shape for an editor is the montage as Hero and two to four full pieces under it. That layout needs more than one film, which is where the free plan stops: Starter holds one film at a time, so it fits the reel and nothing next to it.
Choose the pieces for the job you want. If you want dialogue work, a dialogue scene beats a fourth commercial. If you want commercial work, a spot that plays in full shows you can land a message in its runtime. Where a piece is under NDA or not yet released, a per-film password keeps it off the open web; anyone given the code can pass it on, so treat a password as a gate, not as a guarantee.
The mix
The soundtrack is half your reel,
so mix it like one.
A reel built from several projects arrives with several mixes. Levels jump, dialogue sits at different depths, one clip has a music bed and the next has none. The viewer hears that as sloppy editing, whoever made the original mix.
Even out the levels
Match the perceived loudness from clip to clip, so nobody reaches for the volume between projects. Meter the whole reel as one programme, not each clip on its own.
Let the dialogue through
If a clip is on the reel for its dialogue, duck the music under it or drop the music there. A single track laid over everything hides the sound work that makes you look like an editor.
Check on bad speakers
Play the export on laptop speakers and on cheap earphones, because a viewer may well first hear it that way. Fix what disappears on small speakers before you fix anything else.
Export the mix you approved
Browser playback uses your uploaded export without another platform re-encode. Codec, device and connection requirements still apply. The audio in the file you upload is the audio the viewer hears, so there is no second encode to plan around, and no platform to blame for a thin mix.
Autoplay starts silent
The profile switch Autoplay hero (muted) and the embed parameter autoplay=1 both start the reel with the sound off, matching browser autoplay rules. That suits a cinematic opener and works against an editor whose best moment is a sound cut. If you turn autoplay on, make sure the first seconds read without sound. The autoplay embed guide covers the embed parameters and the browser rules.
Versioning behind one link
The reel will change;
the link should not.
An editor’s reel is recut every time a better project lands. The link is already in your signature, on job boards and in old messages. The new cut should take over that address, not get a new one.
Get notes on the new cut first
Put the draft in the review room and send the link to someone whose taste you trust. They open it without an account, pin notes to a time in the film, draw on the frame and approve the exact version. Notes pull into DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro as markers.
Keep your copy of the old reel
The replace deletes the previous file once the new one is saved. There is no rollback, so your own drive holds the only copy of the outgoing cut.
Upload the new cut onto the same film
The link, views, settings, embeds and place on your page stay exactly as they are. Only the file changes.
Repick the poster, check captions
The poster is not replaced automatically, so pick a new frame. Notes and captions left on the earlier cut may no longer match the new file; redo captions if the reel carries them.
Two warnings. First, a replace is not version history: afterwards there is one film, the current cut. If you want each cut kept as its own version, with an approval recorded against each, that is the review room, and it belongs before the reel is published. Second, the address survives a replace but not a rename. Editing the link name retires the old pretty address with no redirect, so choose it once, as the custom URL guide explains, and leave it. The full recut checklist is in updating a showreel without changing the link.
Where this host is the wrong tool
Three cases where we
say so before you upload.
You need your own domain
There is no custom domain. The reel answers at uncompressed.io/yourname/the-reel and yourname.uncompressed.io/the-reel. If the link must read as your own site, host elsewhere or embed the player on your site.
Your viewers are on slow connections
The player streams the one file you uploaded. There is no lower rendition to fall back to, so a weak connection buffers instead of dropping quality. Export a lighter reel if that is your audience.
You want to be discovered
A profile page here is where you send people, not where they find you. For reach, a large public platform does that job better; keep this link for the people you want to see the reel as you exported it.
Questions
Frequently asked
Should an editor's reel be a montage or a set of scenes?
Both, kept apart. A short montage proves rhythm and taste in the first seconds. One or two scenes that play without interruption prove you can hold a story. Put the montage at the reel link and host the scenes as their own films, so a producer who liked the montage has something longer to open next.
How do I show what I actually did on each project?
Label it on screen and in the description: the project, who directed it, and your role in plain words, for example editor, or editor and sound mix. If someone else graded or mixed it, say so. A reel that implies credit for the grade gets found out the first time a colourist watches it.
Should my editing reel autoplay?
Think twice. The profile setting Autoplay hero (muted) and the embed parameter autoplay=1 both start the reel silent, to match browser autoplay rules. For an editor, the sound is half the argument. If you use autoplay, make sure the opening reads without sound and that the viewer can see how to unmute.
Can I keep the same reel link when I recut it?
Yes. Upload the new cut onto the existing film and the link, views, settings, embeds and placement on your page stay as they are; only the file changes. The previous file is deleted once the new one is saved, so keep your own copy of the outgoing cut, and pick a new poster frame, because the poster is not replaced automatically.
Is the free plan enough for an editor?
For the reel alone, yes: 5 GB and one film at a time, no card. Free accounts are cleared after 90 days with no sign-in and no view, with an email warning first. If you want full pieces next to the reel, you need room for more than one film, which starts at Lite, $9 a month.
One reel, one link, every recut
Starter is free: 5 GB and one film at a time, enough for the reel on its own. To host the reel next to full pieces, Lite is $9 a month for 100 GB plus 100 GB of archive, and Pro is $39 a month for 500 GB plus 500 GB. Unlimited video streaming is included, with no per-view or bandwidth overage charges. Storage and team-seat charges are separate.
Sources
- 1.uncompressed.io pricing: plans, storage and streaming (plan figures read from the product catalogue, 17 September 2026)
- 2.uncompressed.io review room: versions, timecoded notes and approvals (product page; behaviour checked in product code, 17 September 2026)
- 3.uncompressed.io guide: update a showreel without changing the link (our own guide to the replace mechanism)
- 4.MDN Web Docs: Autoplay guide for media and Web Audio APIs (fetched 17 September 2026; muted media is among the conditions under which browsers generally allow autoplay)