Which Corps is Most/Least "WGI" in Design Approach?

[Jeff Ream]

The only difference is that my man character would not put on a microphone and scream "This is the circle of life!" Do you even get what we're talking about? We're talking about being "on the nose." For example, in a show about why kids are passionate about drum corps, you don't angrily scream, "I'm passionate about drum corps!". "This I believe!" Get it? You don't scream the thematic argument at the audience. That's such amateurish, preachy WGI melodrama. That's just leaves no room for subtlety or complexity, no room for interpretation, no wiggle room for the audience.

please i've seen far better preachy WGI melodrama

[Jeff Ream]

agree on the show - perhaps the most impressive drill/brass/drumming I've seen - the corps was super clean and extremely intense the last week or so of 2007

folks were distracted by the overbearing narration - too bad. It was THE corps performance of 2007 -- especially on Friday night. Clearly the best performance, and when the judges didn't put them first that night, with that performance, I knew it was a done deal...

well the recap kind of shows no matter how much people #####ed about the narration, they tied for GE and it was the performance captions that did them in

http://www.fromthepressbox.com/20070811div1finals.htm

http://www.fromthepressbox.com/20070810div1semifinals.htm

Edited February 24, 2016 by Jeff Ream

[jwillis35]

The cancer that's blighting WGI is that design teams are selecting weighty, maudlin, glum, lugubrious themes. Some of these heart-on-the-sleeve productions are like middle eastern funerals with gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, with psychiatrists on the sidelines assigned to each performer. Some of the on-the-nose subject matters are so preachy that the guards should sell end times food buckets with a 1-800 number. Utterly humorless, overwrought, without insight or subtlety, and just uncomfortable to watch.

Clearly the most WGI-influenced corps is the Blue Knights who wins the prize for their show about images that flash before your eyes as you die. A maudlin subject matter, painfully on the nose. The Blue Knights snapped out of their depression a little with 2015's Because, but they still managed to remained glum and humorless. Runner-up goes to the woman with cancer interview on NPR that Cadets did. Great message, but the who-what-where platform was just too on-the-nose and too weighty. Third place goes to Cadets literally shouting at the audience "This I believe!" The color guard should have been spinning sledge hammers.

The show coordinators put the onus on the performers who endure these heavy themes-- a real death sentence. It's like getting stuck in a production of a 22-month run of the Grapes of Wrath at the Steppenwolf. Think about the psychological burden you're subjecting your unpaid performers' minds to for seven or eight months. Life's too short to spend eight months dressed as a Civil War soldier with flies buzzing around your bandaged head when you're 18.

Part of me wants to agree with paragraph 1, but your exaggerations work against your argument.

I agree that Blue Knights have been very WGI-BOA like in recent years, and not all of that is bad. I disagree about Cadets. Cadets 2007 certainly had some cheesy narration, but behind that was straight-up, in your face drum corps. I'd say that you need more than just narration to make a show similar to those seen at WGI. The Cadets' 2008 show is perhaps the better example with its' script, stage, actors, and overall theme. Both shows were ruined to some extent by the narration, but 2008 was a bad show from top to bottom. 2007 could have won Gold with a few tweaks and less narration.

I think there are many more shows by Blue Devils, Carolina Crown, Crossmen, Troopers, Colts, and others that fit the description of being like WGI or BOA. I'm not totally against some of that. Some of those WGI-like elements have worked well on the larger football field. Some have not. Unison body movement can still be effective. Individual body movement is not (IMO). Some of the dancing and prancing around is pointless, especially when it's a small group of people. If the show is cluttered, it's even worse. Nobody in the stands at a live show sees facial expressions. We don't see the meaning in those faces, or the body movement. Not unless you are sitting in the front row at a small stadium. I could go on and on, but I'll get back on topic.

Least WGI-like would be Madison, SCV -- at least among the top 12.

[wallace]

The "This I Believe" concept was based on a series which aired on NPR (named "This I Believe") for four or five years where Americans from all walks of life discussed their core beliefs and how those beliefs influenced them. Muhammad Ali did one as well as Penn Jillette (I believe in Jell-O. Profound! Not!), Van Jones, and a smattering of ordinary Americans. NPR did use clips from the "This I Believe" series by CBS, but for the most part, it was original programming.

Edited February 27, 2016 by wallace

[MikeD]

well the recap kind of shows no matter how much people #####ed about the narration, they tied for GE and it was the performance captions that did them in

http://www.fromthepressbox.com/20070811div1finals.htm

http://www.fromthepressbox.com/20070810div1semifinals.htm

I liked the 2007 narration. 2008, OTOH....hmmmmmmm

[Channel3]

I can't help but agree, to a large extent. Some of the themes are ridiculous and over the top. The thing is, there isn't a ton of nuance you can do in a 12 minute show on a football field, so you get the same broad themes ("Love is nice!" "Good over evil!" "Darkness into Light!") over and over, and the emotional manipulation is incredibly direct and unsubtle. I mean, opera is often emotionally really over-the-top, right? Drum corps has the same problem, but cut to 12ish minutes, sans (most) text, and on a football field. Kinda the nature of the medium. Which is why I wish the emphasis wasn't skewed so totally to story-telling these days.

Drum corps productions that are heavy on plot have no choice but to comply with a binary plot template. For clarity's sake, the binary template features two clearly opposite forces, A versus B, good versus evil (Cadets' Angels and Demons was the most brilliant binary show of all time), slaves versus dictator (Spartacus), vampires versus the hornline, Romeo and depressed Juliet, swans and bachelors. Easy to watch. Simple to understand. A versus B plot lines are easier to stage on a football field so that the message translates to an audience sitting almost 100 yards away in some cases (including both distance from the field action and height of the stands.) The problem is once you get locked into the A versus B storyline, you're stuck with identifying the protagonist and his battle-- you've got to show the inciting incident, then the battle, and resolve it in their favor. A or B must win or change, or compromise in some way by the end. Without that resolution, the undeveloped plot just sits there like a blob of raw oatmeal in the middle of the field. (Game On, Animal Farm, Swan Lake, Vampires.) So I guess I don't mind dumbed down binary story, as much as I mind undeveloped characters, murky theme, unclear action and lack of resolution.

But BD's recent "collage of characters" story template is working (Felliniesque and Ink), and defies the binary template, with the help of an explanatory title, iconic characters, careful staging and wrap-up moments. (Cadets were less successful with their Lincoln Portrait show which brought together about seventeen historical characters' speeches in a blender, and wrapped them up at the end with a red white and blue liquid plastic enema explosion that defied the pure homespun simplicity of the speeches themselves.)

The bigger problem with drum corps show design is clarity and purpose. In twelve short minutes, we need the characters you introduce to resolve their action. We need a character or theme that we can hold on to in order to make it all make sense. If you don't have characters, we need the action or pattern to repeat, grow and build with some resolution or change by the end. Whether you have a story in your show or not, characters or not, without clarity of purpose, pattern, theme, meaning and resolution, you're giving up a ring.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Channel3

[Shempy]

Drum corps shows that are heavy on plot have no choice but to comply with a binary plot template. For clarity's sake, the binary template features two clearly opposite forces, A versus B, good versus evil (Cadets' Angels and Demons was the most brilliant binary show of all time), slaves versus dictator (Spartacus), vampires versus the hornline, Romeo and depressed Juliet, swans and bachelors. Easy to watch. A versus B plot lines are easier to stage on a football field so that the message translates to an audience sitting almost 100 yards away in some cases (including both distance from the field action and height of the stands.) The problem is once you get locked into the A versus B storyline, you're stuck with identifying the protagonist and his battle-- you've got to show the inciting incident, then the battle, and resolve it in their favor. A or B must win or change, or compromise in some way by the end. Without that resolution, the undeveloped plot just sits there like a blob of raw oatmeal in the middle of the field. (Game On, Animal Farm, Swan Lake, Vampires.) So I guess I don't mind dumbed down binary story, as much as I mind undeveloped characters, murky theme, unclear action and lack of resolution.

But BD's recent "collage of characters" story template is working (Felliniesque and Ink), and defies the binary template, with the help of an explanatory title, iconic characters, careful staging and wrap-up moments. (Cadets were less successful with their Lincoln Portrait show which brought together about seventeen historical characters' speeches in a blender, and wrapped them up at the end with a red white and blue liquid plastic enema explosion that defied the pure homespun simplicity of the speeches themselves.)

The bigger problem with drum corps show design is clarity and purpose. In twelve short minutes, we need the characters you introduce to resolve their action. We need a character or theme that we can hold on to in order to make it all make sense. Or we need the action or pattern to repeat, grow and build with some resolution or change by the end. Whether you have a story in your show or not, characters or not, without clarity of purpose, pattern, theme, meaning and resolution, you're giving up a ring.

I notice all of Channel3's posts are edited. I'd hate to see the originals.

[Ghost]

I notice all of Channel3's posts are edited. I'd hate to see the originals.

You know "all" means 100%. Be ready for C3 to cut and paste his posts that were not edited. Anyhooo. Many of us edit some of our posts. For moi, it's spelling or sentence structure.

[Shempy]

You know "all" means 100%. Be ready for C3 to cut and paste his posts that were not edited. Anyhooo. Many of us edit some of our posts. For moi, it's spelling or sentence structure.

I'm sure. I'm just tickled by the thought of him furiously editing each of his treatises on show design day in and day out.

[gloriousgoo]

On a side note, are there any WGI groups you guys feel do that style of design particularly well? I know the whole "bashing the audience in the face with the concept" gripe is a relatively common one even within the indoor circuit, but another gripe I've always had is the shows that seem to lack a concept other than simply ramming and jamming. I can't honestly say I've ever paid much attention to the guard side of things so I don't know if there's an equivalent lack of depth with those groups that occasionally pops up, but this is a very common occurrence on the percussion side. IT seems that every year there are 5 or 6 shows that are completely concept-less and have a name just so they can come up with a design for the tarp. There are a few groups that tend to do this more than others (NCA comes to mind, though this year is a drastic improvement), but most groups fall into either the no concept grouping or the way too direct with the concept grouping.

I've noticed over the past 4 years that I've been involved with indoor (3 years of PIA and .5 years of PIW) that a few groups have broken free from this and it's by no accident that it's the groups that are generally on top. RCC has found their niche with the education/humanistic shows (though this year seems to be an exception), Mystique blows me away with the subtlety they use to attack major concepts and still get them done right and Rhythm X seems to be zoning in on being the B.A. story tellers of the realm. Orange County (Broken City I think now) has certainly found a unique sound that's made me take an unusual interest in a group that struggles to make finals, but I'm not sure they've found a true direction with their shows yet. I really look forward to seeing that group bloom in the future. Anyone have any other thoughts from watching indoor of seasons past?

Edited March 28, 2016 by gloriousgoo