learning to write drill

[stein456]

IMO don't be afriad to use paper and pencil (NOT PEN). You should remind anyone who bawks at your pen and paper presentation that, IT'S THE SUBSTANCE OF YOUR WORK THAT MATTERS.

You have recieved some very good advice here. The best being: STAGING, GUARD PLACEMENT/INTEGRATION. Let me add to that; CLARITY. eight to twelve steps front to back generally speaking. Also, no less than eight steps from the front sideline if you have a pit.

As far as "effect" moves, DON'T BE AFRIAD TO STEAL. Some of the greatest drill designers in the history of drum corps and marching band have stolen drill moves and in some case's ENTIRE SHOWS when they first started. Believe me this is true!

Keep it simple in the beginning. Use big PAPER 11.5/17 as I remember? PENCIL, the dark German drawing pencils work well. Gum ERASER (very important) and measure transition distances with your thumb and index finger. I use the pyware now but, this is what we did "back in the day".

This is something every beginner, drill designer should know. If your stuck out in some remote place with no laptop and need a quick rewrite, paper, pencil and your two fingers are your best friend. ALWAYS BRING SPARE PAPER.

Hope this helps. Old timer, (but, not that old) stein

[xmenjeffb]

Learn from cleaning drill as you learn to write drill.

Sometimes knowing what you dont like will lead you to something you do ,

It is all lines and arcs simply how you arrange them.

Along with what you have been told . I suggest you study some art to see the artist flow of the brush strokes for line.

Also push , pull , expand and contract .

Every action has a reaction.

And last but certainly not least transition transition transition !!!!

[AlanAndreasen]

Good advice from previous posters.

IMHO I'd like to add...

CONTINUITY/FLOW. All too often beginning or bad writers write themselves into a dead end and then throw in a "get out" move. Make your ideas come to life on the field with moves that flow into each other and seem to make sense.

Watch a ton of shows, both good and bad. You can learn so much just by watching.

Get to know who are writing for. Get a tape/dvd of their shows for the past few years. How well do they march? How well do they play? (would the 3rd trumpets fall to pieces if they are not all right next to each other?)

It is so important to speak to the instructors. They offer invaluable ideas as to what they'd like to see happen.

I started writing by volunteering and then being hired as a vis tech. I then offered to write the director an alternative drill to the one the director bought just to show what I could do. When I bought Pyware I put it on the credit card, wrote and delivered the drill, got paid, and paid off the credit card in under two months.

Make sure you have a contract. Think of every possible thing that could go wrong and put it in there. Here's a couple of things that I've had happen to me... directors that have given and/or sold my drill to other directors; a director that took over a year to pay me after delivery, a director that re-wrote significant portions of the show that were total crap and had me in the program as having written the drill.

[jpaul]

Lots of good stuff here. A couple other thoughts:

Don't focus so much on making pictures. Remember that it's the motion between the pictures that creates the effect.

If you're going to do any serious amount of writing by hand, get a lightbox. It will save you tons of time.

Any kind of study that will help you understand the mechanics will be useful-teaching, watching, reading, asking questions. Ultimately, it's a trial-and-error kind of thing. Just start writing (armed with the knowledge that you'll make mistakes and you'll write a lot of crap).

Good luck.

[AlanAndreasen]

Don't focus so much on making pictures. Remember that it's the motion between the pictures that creates the effect.

Totally agree. One of the best things I ever did was to remove the notion of "set" from my thinking and replace it with "snap shot in time."

When teaching drill, I replaced the word "set" with "field location."

[IllianaLancerContra]

You don't need fancy software. I remember seeing on one of the trailers for 'America's Core' where Jim Jones had the original sketch for the sunburst (perhaps the most famous bit of DC drill ever) on the back of an envelope (I think it was an envelope anyway).

Creativity is the important part. Of course, the software will help figure out step sizes, etc, but (in the old days anyway) there were paper charts set in a grid that you could use, if they are still available.

[AlanAndreasen]

If you plan to use paper, in addition to the above comments, make sure the hash marks are right for the unit you are writing for. Get yourself a couple of sets of French curves (small, medium, large), a flexible ruler (really helps to calculate intervals), and high quality compass and dividers.

Google "drill design paper" and you'll get several vendors still selling it.

[MagicBobert]

If you plan to use paper, in addition to the above comments, make sure the hash marks are right for the unit you are writing for.

Oh yes, double check that even if you're writing on a computer!

I was vis teching for a high school one year when the drill writer wrote everything using college hashes. The drill writer didn't notice it because he had just finished writing for a few corps and I didn't notice it because I'd just finished marching corps that summer. About 6-7 pages into charting we were trying to figure out why all the straight lines were crunched to hell when I realized the mistake.

[ouooga]

For anyone learning how to write drill, I completely recommend learning to write by paper. Start a notebook of ideas and hand draw them out, and eventually you'll have a nice collection of visual phrases that will sit in your "stock pile". Then, start worrying about voicing and staging, and do some rewrites for shows you have the score to. Start building up some chops.

It was said already, but again, it's very important to remember that people see MOTION much much much longer than they see a SET. Transitions are key, so play around with that.

Micromarching is a great tool because it lets designers see how things actually move if you can't envision it in your head.

Also, start watching finals from 2000 - 2008 on press box cam, and try to figure out what you like and don't like about other designers' work. This really helps you start to decipher your own personal style.

[Maestro767]

Avoid the trap of putting "pictures" in the drill. Not every drill set you write needs to be a pretty picture - in fact, most of them probably won't be.

If you get your hands on Pyware, use the Morph tool, at least at first. It forces you to move and manipulate the forms around. If you get in the habit of using the shape tools (Curve, Arc, Line, Block, etc) too much... you'll end up striving more for pretty pictures in the drill than FUNCTIONAL forms.