Are judges now trying to lessen the impact of General Effect?

[Cappybara]

2 minutes ago, saxfreq1128 said:

Tough question, honestly. But yes.

Have you ever noticed that some comedies are funnier when you see them in a crowded theater? That definitely matters to your experience of the movie as a consumer: audience reaction helps you like it more.

But judges aren't consumers; they're closer to critics. And whether a show flows or not, or is sophisticated and complicated or not, has nothing to do with the audience. 

Slightly off topic, do movie critics watch the movies in an audience or by themselves? 

[saxfreq1128]

Just now, Cappybara said:

Slightly off topic, do movie critics watch the movies in an audience or by themselves? 

It's mixed. For big movies (say, Spiderman: Homecoming) you watch in a big mixed audience with critics and regular people given advanced tickets. For a regular movie, a smaller theater of just critics. For the smallest movies, screeners you can watch at home.  (I used to be a critic.) 

[MikeRapp]

Just now, saxfreq1128 said:

Tough question, honestly. But yes.

Have you ever noticed that some comedies are funnier when you see them in a crowded theater? That definitely matters to your experience of the movie as consumer.  

But judges aren't consumers; they're closer to critics. And whether a show flows or not, or is sophisticated and complicated or not, has nothing to do with the audience. 

This, to me, is the question that must be answered, then. The word "effect" is the issue for me. Effect means emotional impact, not just a critical analysis of the design idea. I know this is an age old discussion that will never end, and nor should it. This activity has evolved very quickly, really, since it's "rebirth" from a decade or so ago. There are a lot of reasons for it, but the result has surely been far more diversity in show concepts and a lot more emphaisis on designs being "shows" instead of technical expositions.

[MikeRapp]

3 minutes ago, Cappybara said:

Slightly off topic, do movie critics watch the movies in an audience or by themselves? 

Many times critics are watching a moving in their home. In fact, from the reviewers I know personally, that is the norm.

[MikeRapp]

When you look at Rotten Tomatoes, you will notice that they have two scores, a critics average, and an audience average. Many times the numbers are pretty close, many times they are very different. Ultimately for a movie the ultimate critical analysis is at the box office, but the good, reputable reviewers tend to understand how to watch and critique a movie in ways that are relevant to the potential viewing audience, not in the vacuum of "sheets."

Personally, I tend to learn to ignore reviewers who are reviewing movies "by the sheets." I'm not interested in their classroom exposition of the pieces that make up the parts, I'm interested in the final analysis...the general effect. Many reviewers love giving high marks to what are really art films that have no general appeal at all. And, panning obvious box office smashes because, well, they are just popcorn movies.

Judging general effect is becoming so difficult now that we have so many elements combining to make a show. Just look at what are now the top five or six shows, each is distinctly different than the others. There appear to be fewer and fewer constants between the great shows. This year, perhaps the activity's best brass corps has a solo singer for half the show. How do you judge singing in a band show?

Enter electronics. Yeah, how does that work when most of the corps aren't really even using electronics.

Edited July 22, 2017 by MikeRapp

[skevinp]

32 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

But to what extent does or should "crowd reaction" play into scoring GE? 

Directly, it should not be a factor at all, I don't think it is supposed to be, and I don't think it is, other than some perhaps unavoidable subconscious impact.

Indirectly, I think over time DCI probably does pay attention to how popular corps are as a whole, (as that impacts the success and survival of the activity) and this may influence the way the sheets are written to encourage consideration of objectively measurable elements identifiable as likely to be associated with audience appreciation and/or enjoyment.  

[saxfreq1128]

14 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

This, to me, is the question that must be answered, then. The word "effect" is the issue for me. Effect means emotional impact, not just a critical analysis of the design idea. I know this is an age old discussion that will never end, and nor should it. This activity has evolved very quickly, really, since it's "rebirth" from a decade or so ago. There are a lot of reasons for it, but the result has surely been far more diversity in show concepts and a lot more emphaisis on designs being "shows" instead of technical expositions.

Honestly, the best insight here is still judges' tapes. Emotional reactions and critical ones aren't opposed, but the emotional reactions judges value  aren't the ones fans have in mind when they ask for this, I don't think.

Everything I know about GE, I know from the DCI dvd's that used to feature the GE judges' commentary. Listening to the GE judges talk about Frameworks, for example, is illuminating. A couple of things I remember (it's been years): the Music GE talking about Frameworks in terms of range of sounds, the color and timbre of the brass playing, the hot and cool approaches to sound coming from the pit, etc. These are emotional reactions, for a judge: the judge is letting the sound have an impact on him, but not really in terms of being entertained.

Versus the visual GE judge that same year complaining re the Cadets that the way they draggedthose dance platforms on/off the field didn't really flow at all. Flow comes up a lot: are you just ham-fistedly trying to make a big impact moment work, or are you leading into and out of it elegantly, and earning it? How are you expressing the visual ideas? etc etc 

Edited July 22, 2017 by saxfreq1128

[MotoSurfBass]

35 minutes ago, Newseditor44 said:

For what it's worth, I think GE might be too subjective  and we're seeing the results of that this season. For the first time in a long time, the corps that is technically superior might just win a championship.

 

31 minutes ago, drumcorpsfever said:

You may be right.  If so, there is a paradym shift in the making - and may be happening right in front of our eyes.   Though, I think it is too early to buy into that one.   This will leave to interesting discussion as we move along.

 

16 minutes ago, MikeRapp said:

This, to me, is the question that must be answered, then. The word "effect" is the issue for me. Effect means emotional impact, not just a critical analysis of the design idea. I know this is an age old discussion that will never end, and nor should it. This activity has evolved very quickly, really, since it's "rebirth" from a decade or so ago. There are a lot of reasons for it, but the result has surely been far more diversity in show concepts and a lot more emphaisis on designs being "shows" instead of technical expositions.

 

2 minutes ago, saxfreq1128 said:

Honestly, the best insight here is still judges' tapes. Emotional reactions and critical ones aren't opposed, but the emotional reactions judges value  aren't the ones fans have in mind when they ask for this, I don't think.

Everything I know about GE, I know from the DCI dvd's that used to feature the GE judges' commentary. Listening to the GE judges talk about Frameworks, for example, is illuminating. A couple of things I remember (it's been years): the Music GE talking about Frameworks in terms of range of sounds, the color and timbre of the brass playing, the hot and cool approaches to sound coming from the pit, etc. These are emotional reactions, for a judge: the judge is letting the sound have an impact on him, but not really in terms of being entertained.

Versus the visual GE judge that same year complaining re the Cadets that the way they draggedthose dance platforms on/off the field didn't really flow at all. Flow comes up a lot: are you just ham-fistedly trying to make a big impact moment work, or are you leading into and out of it elegantly, and earning it? How are you expressing the visual ideas? etc etc 

I think all three of you are on to the same thing... the ultimate evolution of judging. 

I know from listening to judge tapes with the groups I work with (mostly HS, but have heard it in Independent tapes as well), one of the biggest factors in the Content subcaption is the "vocabulary" of different elements of design. With the accelerating expansion of this "book of vocabulary" terms, I think we are approaching a point where content will not be determined by how many and which elements you CAN incorporate, but how well you can incorporate the elements you DO use. The way things are now, there are clearly some elements that are generating higher content scores than others. To avoid a DCI where the same corps using certain elements will have an advantage simply by design (making cleanliness nearly moot), judging will have to make a significant shift. As radical as it sounds, designs can't be judged corps to corps in the future, but rather between where a corps' design is and where it can be.

Edited July 22, 2017 by MotoSurfBass

[mfrontz]

Translation of the thread title:

'Bluecoats in fourth...what happened?'

[MotoSurfBass]

4 minutes ago, mfrontz said:

Translation of the thread title:

'Bluecoats in fourth...what happened?'

I haven't seen a high/multi-cam show since the theater premiere, but I distinctly remember thinking about the Bluecoats show that I had no clue how the show was supposed to evolve throughout the season. The show seemed to spring forth fully formed from the start, only needing cleaning the rest of the season. While it's a fantastic way to start, it gives corps with room to develop time to catch up as their shows evolve. In all honesty, I could have said the same thing about last year's show, but the sheer novelty of Down Side Up compared to the rest of DCI that year kept it fresh and in front the whole year. This year, with the top corps all taking elements from 2016 Bloo and incorporating them into their designs, Bloo is not nearly as far ahead as they were last year.

TL;DR: Bluecoats basically won last year because they caught DCI by surprise. Now that everyone's doing it, Bloo no longer has a gigantic advantage.