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I'm a videographer and animator, with probably a 70/30 split between the two. My full-time day job, at a university, involves shooting a lot of interviews and talking head segments and a lot of b-roll around the institution where I work. But I've also been doing more animation work in the last year or so and enjoy it equally.
Like a lot of people I do freelance work on the side, for corporate and nonprofit clients. I'm hoping to build up my freelance business in the next year, and something I struggle with is how to market my work. Should I emphasize one over the other? Should I have separate reels? Should I have separate brands? Are there drawbacks to trying to present myself as someone who can do live action, documentary AND motion graphics? Am I overthinking this? I imagine I'm not alone as someone who likes to work both behind the camera and behind the... wacom tablet. Wondering how other folks in the community think about this and handle it?
I split my time about 50/50 freelance editing and animating (with the odd production job thrown in there for extra cash). Works out great for me because I get bored doing the same rote things every day so it mixes things up, and I think a diversity of clients/work means less chances of unexpected downtime.
w/r/t reels and marketing yourself, I only have animation and mograph stuff up on my site because I'm actively trying to do more of that and less editing. For now, the relationships I've already established feed me more than enough editing work so my thought was don't distract with anything I'm not actively trying to cultivate.
Who knows if that's the right thing, or if there is a right thing, but in general I think diversity in work is only going to help, no matter how you decide to present yourself online. Try putting it all up on one site divided into sections for your different specialties, and tie it all together with your storytelling skills. That's the best skill non-specialists bring to the table IMO, and it sounds like the kind of work you've been doing will speak to that.
Anyway, my 2 cents. Good luck, share what you end up doing!
This was almost my exact situation up until late 2016. I worked for a college and was doing probably probably 60% video work and 40% animation work. I decided I wanted to focus more on animation, since I realized while I liked editing, I didn't enjoy the shooting part of the work nearly as much.
As for the reel-- I think you could take it a few ways. My gut reaction is to have 2 reels, but have a super nice intro/outro on your live action reel that shows you know some animation work in case that's all anyone sees.
I had a background all over the place, from illustration, graphic design, editing, photography, 2D and 3D animation. I feel like it could be good to have picked a narrow focus sometimes, but there's also a lot of value in knowing several disciplines.
Animating as an editor or with a background in music gave me certain timing advantages. Working with real cameras helped me with 3D cameras... on and on. Each skill informs the others.
Even after many years working, I still have trouble thinking I need to focus, but I would say for you, just follow your interest and take it seriously. Don't be too hard on yourself. Keep growing.
Great question! I think a lot of us struggle with the same problem. I would say it depends on the work you are trying to get. If you want to be a generalist I think placing both in the same reel is fine. However if you are hoping to get more work as an animator, the 2 reel approach doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Live action footage would throw me off if I was expecting to see an animation reel.