I learned from coaching and insight as to how to be more competitive with current trends in the market.

Since I am good in the edit room, I’ve always done all my own demos, but recently I felt that I should update with demos that were produced by someone who was known as being at the top of their game, and that was Chuck Duran.

Being ‘top of their game’ means a lot of things. Not just piecing something together, but knowing ‘what’ to piece together. What is in demand. What are agents looking for. What are the current trends. That’s just as important as the production of the demo. So I took the Chuck Duran experience and here’s what I got:

Chuck set up a time for us to chat to find out about me and discuss what would be best ares for my signature sound. Then we put together the type of reads we wanted to go for under his recommendation. We mapped out the exact direction for both of my demos. The phone call took about two hours.

2 weeks later he sent the scripts that were custom written for me and recommended I do a demo prep coaching session with Jodi Gotlieb. I learned a lot. I’m not a rookie, I currently do NFL work for the Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders, Collegiate for Notre Dame and features for NFL Films. So I know how to read and I’ve done promos for each, BUT, learning what’s current in the TV industry is very important if one wants to be current and work.

With that under my belt, I did the session with Chuck and the session went great. We just did a phone patch where he directed me, I performed, he made note of which takes he wanted to use and asked me to send him those takes. Bottom line, he produced two demos that I could not. And along the way, I learned from coaching and insight as to how to be more competitive with current trends in the market. Thank you, Chuck!

-Rick Riley