The Greatest Showreel of All Time | Paul Woods | Designer, illustrator, blogger and wanker

Sometime in July, Steven and I began discussing what was for us a yearly summer project that we never seemed to finish: the Edenspiekermann showreel film. Every year, we would start this project with great enthusiasm, but eventually become disillusioned with what most design agency films become: An egotistical montage telling the viewer how great the said agency is, all coupled with lots of footage of people drawing on Post-it notes.

Once again, as this year’s summer season came around, Steven and I sat together with the team (Alexis, Vera and Henrike), wondering if this elusive piece of cinematic history would ever make it to the silver (aluminium) screen.

And then the idea became clear to us. A true eureka moment: If we were to make an agency film, it would need to be:

The Greatest Showreel

The idea

From the start, we knew that a good showreel should be memorable, funny and most importantly, tell a great story. Early on, we decided that the best way to achive this was to show no client work whatsoever. Instead, clients would be referenced through subtle cues throughout.

We racked our brains—“what could this amazing and revolutionary story be?”. After an afternoon of intenstive brainstorming, we realised that the centre point of how we work was relationships. We had found our theme.

The Cast

No great film is complete without a great cast. And if we wanted to create the Greatest Showreel of All Time, we would need to assemble the Greatest Ensemble Cast of All Time. Ever.

Armed with the most ridiculous storyboard imaginable, we set about gathering our ‘cast’ through Amazon orders, eBay and confincing family and friends that their beloved pets were safe with us. Sort of.

The shoot

In an unfortunate turn of events, the very week we chose to shoot the film turned out to be the most oppressively hot week in Berlin that year. Temperatures outside were reaching a refreshing 37 degrees centigrade, while inside the blacked-out shooting room (complete with over 10 studio lamps), the air was hitting close to 50 degrees. Nonetheless, nothing would stop us from making our film (and indeed a giant trail of mess and destruction in the process).