MagicBobert Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 I see both sides of this... on the one hand, depth of design where you can always find more stuff that you didn't notice the first time is excellent. It allows you to watch more and develop further appreciation. On the other hand, you are basically admitting that the judges can't judge a show fairly until they see it X number of times. When this happens, the judges are building their previous viewings of a corps into the score for one night, when in reality the judge should only be judging the 11 minutes he/she sees on the field on that day, not compiling things into the score from previous shows. Yep. We like to pretend it doesn't happen, but it does to some extent. There's really nothing we can do about it other than have a fresh slate of judges every time. As an engineer by training, I'm only interested in problems I can solve. This is, at this point, an unsolvable problem. Next! A performing art is about communicating with your audience . Yes, it is! The problem is that in other performing arts, you rarely have as much audience predisposition as you do in this activity. We'd like to all pretend we're impartial observers, but we're not. We like to root for the home team. That's fine (really!), but it would be irresponsible of us to claim that we're impartial enough to evaluate the value of the performances on the field. We should politely recuse ourselves. Compare this to other performing arts and you'll see the difference. Under most circumstances, you don't go into movies or live theater predisposed to what you're about to see. Drum corps is a competitive performing art, one in which the audience can feel a connection to their "home team", making the dynamic much more like that of a sporting event than a movie or musical. In effect, the Entertainment Effect caption would be like asking for the fans in the stadium to give away some free runs to a team in the world series. The question then becomes, which team can pack more of its fans into the stadium. It would be helpful to know what percentage of the audience sees a given corps more than once. I have nothing against depth, but I believe all good art or entertainment should be enjoyable on a surface level as well -- particularly when that art or entertainment needs a substantial fan base to survive. Fair point. With the advent of things like the Fan Network, I think there might be more of a "multiple viewings" audience than might be obvious. That's largely how I base my opinions on depth of design. With the Fan Network, I can see not only multiple viewings of the same performance, but I can watch the progression of a show over the summer. That really gives me a lot of insight (as a fan) into which shows had me excited in June but feeling flat by August vs. shows where I'm still unraveling all the juicy goodness during Finals week. risk CAN be appealing Yes, it can! It can also being completely unappealing, which was exactly my point. It's not to say that riskier show designs would completely disappear, but I think fewer show designers would be willing to take that risk when it's pretty easy to build something that will have mostly favorable reviews. That's what risk is all about, right? Go for the glory of something completely new and fresh, or be labeled as obscure and inaccessible by people that don't understand you. It's not all unicorns and rainbows. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 I'd like to trust your math, H, but I'd like to see it. How do you figure this? Would you mind? Not my math. I was following up on Bluecoats88 here. HH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Not my math. I was following up on Bluecoats88 here. HH I appreciate his (and your) effort, but the math is bogus in the worst and revisionist in the least, basing the entertainment caption on summations of comments perceived throughout the season. Hardly even a speculation. And certainly can't be used as the basis of contention or point of view, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garfield Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 A 1.2 spread in "entertainment" would have put Cavies on top of BD last year. I'd bet we'd have no problem locating dozens of armchair judges on DCP who would have given Cavies that spread and more. And if the judges didn't, what would we have? Even more complaints about our champion? The champion we freely concede achieved superior performance? Someone explain to me how this helps drum corps. HH I think the point here is not the score in the new caption, nor an attempt to settle disagreement among DCPers. The point is to produce more entertaining shows because the caption has a place on the sheets. I fail to see how this is a negative. And the possible positive is...wait for it...more entertaining shows. Because the sheets ask for it. You and I both know we'll still argue about it, but the casual fan who might not spend time on DCP might go away from a show more entertained. How is this bad, again? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Yes, it is! The problem is that in other performing arts, you rarely have as much audience predisposition as you do in this activity. We'd like to all pretend we're impartial observers, but we're not. We like to root for the home team. That's fine (really!), but it would be irresponsible of us to claim that we're impartial enough to evaluate the value of the performances on the field. We should politely recuse ourselves. Compare this to other performing arts and you'll see the difference. Under most circumstances, you don't go into movies or live theater predisposed to what you're about to see. Drum corps is a competitive performing art, one in which the audience can feel a connection to their "home team", making the dynamic much more like that of a sporting event than a movie or musical. In effect, the Entertainment Effect caption would be like asking for the fans in the stadium to give away some free runs to a team in the world series. The question then becomes, which team can pack more of its fans into the stadium. I think you are profoundly over-estimating this factor. The biggest display of "predisposition" during a drumcorps performance occurs during a corps entrance. I've seen "home-town" corps leave an audience flat and audiences just give it up for an amazing performance (regardless of *who* was giving it). There's not much (if any at all) "home team" effect in drum corps *once the performance is under way*. Additionally the caption assesses how well the performance hold the interest and attention of an audience. It is not a simple measure of (minutes of applause) X (applause intensity.) I've seen corps hold an audience on the edge of their seats for 11 minutes; such an occurrence would not registered as applause but would register as audience effect. So your analogy fails. The audience will not be judging. They will not be asked to evaluate performance. And they will not give points to the home team (which for nearly every drum corps does not exist in any case). They will react as they've always reacted: directly to the performance on the field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Well, there was a lot of good executing going last year, too, but BD won because they appealed to the sheets and what would be favorable judged. Is that any different? Here's why I think it's different. There was a lot of good execution last year. There was also clearly superior execution. In fact, there was little disagreement on which corps executed their programs best. Thus we fans were able to achieve a reasonably objective ranking of achievement, which happened to match the judges' scoring. I have no such expectation we can evaluate entertainment in similar fashion. HH 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie1223 Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 (edited) I think you are profoundly over-estimating this factor. The biggest display of "predisposition" during a drumcorps performance occurs during a corps entrance. I've seen "home-town" corps leave an audience flat and audiences just give it up for an amazing performance (regardless of *who* was giving it). There's not much (if any at all) "home team" effect in drum corps *once the performance is under way*. Either way. The way it is now doesn't matter because it will all change with this proposal. The audience will now be self-aware of their reactions just as a corps performer is aware of their actions and performance being judged by the judged. Additionally the caption assesses how well the performance hold the interest and attention of an audience. It is not a simple measure of (minutes of applause) X (applause intensity.) I've seen corps hold an audience on the edge of their seats for 11 minutes; such an occurrence would not registered as applause but would register as audience effect. But now you're a judge and have to decide which is "more" of an audience effect. The corps that had the audience silent in captivation or the corps that got people jumping out of their seat. We don't need to put numbers on audience reaction because you can't. One kind of audience captivation is no better than another. It's silly, and it will only cause controversy between judges, corps, and audiences. And the last thing we need is more controversy in drum corps!!! lol! There is no way to make this category purely about the corps on the field. We've seen that people here based on the whole G8 thing who won't cheer for a G8 corps because of all the politics. People's perceptions of corps will dictate how much they will react to a corps other than the actual product on the field. This category cannot make that distinction and its possible that its not entirely fair toward a corps. A corps political baggage shouldn't hinder a corps score. So your analogy fails. The audience will not be judging. They will not be asked to evaluate performance. And they will not give points to the home team (which for nearly every drum corps does not exist in any case). They will react as they've always reacted: directly to the performance on the field. Not necessarily. Again, the audience will become self aware of the way they react to a show. Of course the reactions are going to be different with this proposal. Edited January 14, 2011 by charlie1223 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 ...I don't disagree with you that "excellence" attracts fans. Compulsories in figure skating exhibit excellence. Hard core fans like watching them. But they're not televised because the audience enjoys the excellence packaged up and accessible. Does the packaging somehow remove the excellence? Not at all. Will excellence still prevail? Absolutely -- so long as your packaging keeps the audience interested in what your doing. I get your point. What I don't understand is how it relates to drum corps. We just can't compare the capacity of figure skating to pull the American Idol demographic into the ice rink with drum corps' eternal struggle against the American Pie "one time at band camp" stereotype. Yes, we have to save fans while attracting fans. And yes, entertainment is good. It is a virtue. It is something we want to encourage in drum corps. Entertainment will help retain and perhaps attract fans. I agree with you on all these things. What I just can't agree on is that trying to grade something so broad and subjective will help in any of this. What I fear is it will be counter-productive. HH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiodb Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Your sorta proving my point here. Right, those corps took design chances and scored with audiences. Did they KNOW before hand that they were designing a audience winning show? Probably not, they designed a show and crossed their fingers that the audience would fall in love with it. They took risks that payed off. Yet you think that if they have a greater incentive, they'll be less inclined to take that chance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glory Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 (edited) I think the point here is not the score in the new caption, nor an attempt to settle disagreement among DCPers. The point is to produce more entertaining shows because the caption has a place on the sheets... I understand that. And I agree more entertaining shows are a good thing. But what of my hypothetical? (It's now a hypothetical so as to take the prior calculation out of the discussion.) Cavies need a 1.2 spread in entertainment to pass BD last year. But the judges only award Cavies 1 point differential in the entertainment caption. So BD is the champion. Where does that leave drum corps? We'd have Cavies, the fan favorite and the judges top pick in entertainment, in second. BD gets the ring. It would be worse than 2010. More discredit on the legitimate champion. More griping than ever. And all because we separate entertainment from general effect. Why must we? HH Edited January 14, 2011 by glory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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