BigW

Much of the time, a show would still be quite effective without props due to strong design and high performance levels. Rarely are things that tightly integrated except for the high end BoA/DCA/DCI teams.

Blast! Was predicated largely on that. It had its day, it was pretty fascinating... then well, it's gone.

This is what they should be doing/should have been doing for a long, long time. Sometimes, you really need to do what you desire to do rather than chase commentary. I remember learning this as a kid when major show changes were made that we intensely disliked to chase numbers. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered, we were 6th no matter what we'd have done, changes or not. No way 7th was catching us (several point gap)... and while getting to @ .5 of 5th may have been nice, most if not all of us who performed that year would have rather kept things as is to do something far more meaningful and innovative. Those things always need to be kept in mind. Doing what you deeply and sincerely believe in artistically in spite of a number is worth more in the long term. You don't end up still pretty angry about the decisions that were made 40 years ago in my case. ( I think I reached the half-life a couple of years ago.) At least it was a learning experience that shaped my beliefs for the future, and now. Can commentary and conversation in critique improve the product? That's a deep decision the design team needs to make. I believe it's foolish to just do it for the sake of doing it when there are collective doubts about whether it's the right thing to do/decision to make, or it's believed to compromise what you want to do artistically.

I think that's very fair- Looking over the 1-6 slots in 2014 (Tilt, Out of This World, Felliniesque for example) , there were some incredible brass books in there. Splitting subatomic particles has been the way corps have been placed for quite some time now.

Wow. Dad's Engineering background was helpful BITD when I helped Dad build the DM podium for our HS. wood/plywood Stressed skin construction and folded. Very light and strong. Dad gave it a 5 year life, it lasted 10. You can build things for not a lot of money , construct them with quality and still make them look good. Many aren't convinced of that. You have a guy like Bob Sandor at Sky who has the tools, the smarts, and the engineering background, things get well fabricated. I got the chance to watch him work. Wow. I think you've heard about the one visual coordinator in the HS activity who whinged that they spent $6K on props and were getting nowhere. I almost told him, "I can spend 250K on a Ferrari 458, drive it down the 50 and park it for the show. What does it do to enhance the program, but... I spent 250k!" I was thanked for not saying that. It could have got rough. 🍺

Phantom has always has issues with many folks about how they approach and arrange. Some people don't dig under the surface and think very deeply about what's inside that arrangement. They come to some rather shallow conclusions in quite a few instances. Lord, we can go back to 1979's "Malambo" and people saying the triplets weren't difficult because they were in unison. Mmmhmm.... Yeah. Right. Passages where the Low Brass were in the lower ends of the instrument, which could get excruciatingly ugly with G Bugles and was insanely hard to make work, and well, it wasn't pitched high enough to suit some folks. There's a catch phrase that's been in vogue, "Sustain and deliver" in evaluations. (Yeah, I know it's got other connotations, but that's what the term is.) Sustaining and shaping a long musical phrase and then capping it off with the hit or ending idea isn't easy. It demands a lot of thought from the performers and maturity. Thinking back, "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral", at least in the Calliet transcription for Wind Band, is an very difficult exercise in patience. Cranking out he notes are easy. Making it a musical experience is very, very challenging. If one is into instant gratification... or into being spoonfed with being hammered to death with painfully obvious challenges and difficulty well... Phantom has suffered for not being that way a good bit of the time for quite some time, not just recently. In 1999, they made it pay off, and it was pretty much a miraculous thing. Effect doesn't have to be blatantly obvious, nor "Impressive". It can have subtle facets. Same with deciding what is challenging and how challenging. There are nuances. Just my tuppence.

I knew he was a very, very special individual then. I'd love to just sit and play some duets with him some day for fun. He'd draw the best from me.

Davis is a very strong young man of very strong character. He has the deep respect of everyone who's met him. The apples don't fall far from the tree, as they say. His Grandmothers will be there with him on the podium. He'll be fine. My condolences to your family. It's never, ever easy.

IIRC, There was a tendency to have what looked like heavy and cumbersome props that called for burly HS offensive linemen to manhandle, and the guard were mostly very petite young ladies who could barely move that stuff. There were times I felt bad for them. It's hard to construct strong enough stuff for field use that's also light enough to easily move around. Almost need a structural engineer to design the prop and figure out what materials to make it out of. O.o

That was one of his biggest concerns. I remember a conversation to the corps about always having something to work on and improve all the way to the end- showing us a list of things to take care of over finals weekend.

Thanks! I figured that someone was thinking about these issues in a serious way. Especially with a corps as thoughtful and detailed as CV is about how they go about their craft. Just sticking a Go-Pro on the 50 and letting fly might work, but there really has to be thought and care about these kinds of things if you're going for a score. The competition is also thoughtful and detailed with the other DCA teams, or had better be unless they got lucky with the set-up. I fiddle with photography mainly of rare automobiles for fun and have to do it a lot more seriously for work, and know even at work, composition and camera settings are important when you need to drive home to another facility that they're shipping unaudited hazardous materials and they don't want to believe it. (Jim's nearby DLA counterparts... "Why is our case of ethylmethyl bromoseltzeride being held?" "You didn't so all the paperwork we need. Almost all of it. Read the rejection form. I sent you. It tells you what's missing." "We want pictures of EVERY side of the case." "Sure, since you asked. Either send me the documents to fix this or come get your case." 😾) Hope I made you groan, Jim. Do NOT put a Frank Dorritie/Dave Rohrer/Ray Eyler trained brass player with a Mus.Ed. degree into a job that demands attention to to very fine details. If you screw up.... 😸

Thank you. But, the camera can be adjusted before show start to frame the field the way the presenter wants to frame it for the entire show using positioning and the zoom lens and then left in that fixed lens setting and position, can't it? One reason would be to keep distractions from being seen like the cars driving by that Jim mentioned earlier. Perhaps to show only the part of the field the corps is using, not all the fences, the track, empty field space, etc.. Can the camera be fixed on a tower/pole /raised in or behind the stadium to get a better top down angle onto the field so it's not as flat so the drill pops better and is more readable? Can one use a drone set on hover to also get the same result a normal camera would at that point in space rather than a tower mount? (though strong gusts might cause a problem, but the settings on the drone can be fixed and not adjusted after show start ... I'll give a dollar to someone involved in one of the DCA corps for drone use as a teaching tool, he knows who he is...) Camera lens choices and settings can do a lot to alter visual perceptions in a subtle way. Are those mandated as long as they remain fixed throughout the performance? it still leaves a lot of options one could do to better present the program within your description of the rules framework, unless the lens fixed setting, angle of presentation camera to field, distances from camera to sideline are all specifically mandated. You tinker with any kind of motorsport as I have, you read the rules carefully and use what you can use legally within the provided framework. Are any of the things I have mentioned above to enhance the video presentation illegal within the framework? They seem to be legal regarding the restrictions you've mentioned. I've emphasized legality. I have not mentioned doing 17 takes of every chunk of the show and finding the best one of every number and splicing it, which is blatantly illegal or altering the sound files or using a different music file attached to the video file and synced.

In part, yes. No arguments there. the thing is, you'd better have some real substance in that editing. Editing won't save you if the drill design is weak, and you can't hide the stumblebums if a lot of the group are for the whole program. But, you have to do given the situation you're placed in to do right by the organization and present them in the best light possible. If you have a good product and you present it with a half baked video, it's a disservice to the performers. I think it'd be like slapping all of them in the face. And... if you're obviously hiding weak issues during the entire presentation using careful video editing...how does one assess an entire ensemble in terms of visual construction and the performance of that ensemble? When an adjudicator can't get a feel for what the average Joe or Jane really knows and demonstrates in a performance, questions begin to be asked, or had better be asked. The best groups pretty much show you everyone musically and visually sending a message of, "here we are, take a good look at all of us, we have our (act) together, we're well taught and the performers know what's expected of them to make this show work". Can they make that impression even stronger with better video editing than an equivalent opponent? Might break a tie. Might give them .1 . I'd think the DCA adjudicators would recognize some of the shenanigans when they're being used and take it into account and not be sucked into an unreasonable number. The ones I know personally are pretty smart and experienced people.

LOL. My guess is he was worried about peaking early at that point.

Both are tied. Crowd pleasing shouldn't be totally exclusive to a number. The thing is, you start pulling certain tricks to maybe generate GE but it's not as challenging as the design team wants you to think it is... the people in the right captions that day have to know to call the B.S., why, and by how much. If it's effective, it's effective. There's even nuance there. Sometimes, doing something exceedingly difficult very, very well can be effective. (See just about any Cavaliers show from Brubaker era forward). Enjoying the conversation very much. We're talking about some deep stuff here. Seriously.

And whether anyone recognized how freakin' hard it was for the percussion section of your team to play together atomized all over the field at times instead of being concentrated as usual... 😉

Good design takes away what the visual designer does not want you to see, like that huge billboard on the back of the building behind the stadium. It draws your attention to where your attention's to be drawn. A given. Now...if one has the advantage of what's framed in the video to take away any possible distractions from the viewer and hem you in like those huge framing props to make you see what's to be seen, why not? If the design is solid, it will appear even more solid. I know this makes you frown. We all can smell the cheese. But, if you can take advantage of what you can and cannot do to help your team within the rules framework (and moral ethics, one shouldn't be breaking federal or state laws or hurting people....), one should do it. Example comes to mind-- When the whole electronics shebang went though DCI, IIRC, the Blue Coats weren't very keen on it, but they also said, if it goes this way, we're all in in terms of equipment and design and we won't be left behind. Obviously, they haven't been in that aspect.

NOW I remember. HS band I staffed versus would take massive frame like props to close the field down to 35-35 and to the backhash to make their pedestrian 8 to 5 look like 5-5 all the time. Also gave the impression that they covered the field. Ream knows the team and fought some epic battles as well with them. Normal Field = 48,000 square feet. with HS hashes and 35-35 you create a 21k square foot performance field. There was a lot of kvetching and frustration about assessments of what the actual challenges were visually. I'm certain Rich pointed that out at some point. and I can imagine how it was pointed out. 😸

Yes! It gets you more down on the field with them. Makes the experience more personal. Absolutely! That's been one of the things most groups are now trying to do and why most have rid themselves of the hats. They want you to see the performer and feel more attached. Also saves a lot of money and logistics too.

Very astute. I wouldn't think there's a set high camera angle or x field of view requirement. There prolly needs to be some green framing. Emphasis on some. But if they'd zoom and tighten up a tad to fit their actual max field coverage... they'd look bigger, their drill velocity would look quicker then it actually is...

Off Topic, Crossmen Opener is DYNAMIC. MUSICAL, MUSICAL Percussion ensemble. YEAH!

Hopefully the under 35 entrants this season will build things from there for 2022.

Agreed. Seen several groups do just that at DCA shows. They got some exposure and performance time, and no one was grousing. The grousers got their popcorn and took their head calls, I guess. And for pre and post contest, they were fine. Didn't embarrass themselves.

Did it say which corps or are the viewers supposed to be the T and P Judge and count heads? 😋 Cabs, CV, Fusion, Bush, Sun, White Sabers, Southern Knights, Hurcs in Open, Govies, Rogue Hollow, Saints, Highland Regiment in A, 8 Open, 4 A?

I believe a combination of very bad timing and no insurance, yes. When a new System Blue Tuba runs about 11k a pop... this gets expensive just for the Tuba section alone. Extend this to the rest of the brass, you're talking a new Aston-Martin prolly.