phd-student-TTU Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 17 minutes ago, fatbrassboy said: But the problem is that every corps has that same amount of room and time to grow.... Miracle-Gro vs sand 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Dixon Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 19 minutes ago, fatbrassboy said: But the problem is that every corps has that same amount of room and time to grow.... sure - but hopefully their hard work and talent prevails 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post hostrauser Posted June 25, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 25, 2019 1 hour ago, Glenn426 said: Phantom is a good case study of why you need an experienced designer at the helm to make all of the ideas that the arrangers and drill Writers have work together.. To pause and say what will marching around aimlessly do for the overall effect of the show, What good does playing a thousand notes during a Low Brass & Quad Soli do if it doesn't convey an emotional feeling, What in the world does any of this have to do with Joan? A lot of these things should have been caught by a good Editorial designer. They would have said, Where is our focus, what are trying to convey, And what does it contribute to Joan. ... It is possible to salvage this show but the designers are going to have to be smart to realize that they have perhaps over designed this show and that its time to bust out the editing pen. And absolutely non of this is a slight on the performers, you can clearly see and hear that they have talent. Pulling for you Phantom.. Absolutely this, 100%. Some of the individual section books for 2017-2019 have been fine, but the coordination of elements and the show design as an overall whole has been utterly miserable. Also, look at how poorly their "Analysis" scores have been the past several years. In 2018 their Visual Analysis score was last in Finals and a full 0.6 below the 11th place score. Brass and Percussion scores are adequate, frequently placing in that caption above where the overall corps places. They're playing notes, but not making music (as my old college band director used to say). I'm pretty neutral on Will Pitts as an arranger. (I certainly don't feel the vitriol towards his brass books that some others do; sure, he's no Jim Wren or J.D. Shaw, but then, who is?) But as far as being the PROGRAM COORDINATOR, Pitts is not getting the job done. I think he is trying to wear too many hats. Look at Vanguard, and how fantastic their shows have been recently. Shaw/Rennick/Rennick creating the music, Gaines/Toth creating the visual (and yes, that is an absolute embarrassment of riches, a level of design talent that few corps can even hope to aspire to), and the absolutely underrated and desperately important Scott Koter making sure everything works together. Phantom needs, first and foremost, a capable Program Coordinator. If they don't have that in place, all the changes in the world to design and instructional staff won't make a bit of difference. 12 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DFA1970 Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 26 minutes ago, hostrauser said: Absolutely this, 100%. Some of the individual section books for 2017-2019 have been fine, but the coordination of elements and the show design as an overall whole has been utterly miserable. Also, look at how poorly their "Analysis" scores have been the past several years. In 2018 their Visual Analysis score was last in Finals and a full 0.6 below the 11th place score. Brass and Percussion scores are adequate, frequently placing in that caption above where the overall corps places. They're playing notes, but not making music (as my old college band director used to say). I'm pretty neutral on Will Pitts as an arranger. (I certainly don't feel the vitriol towards his brass books that some others do; sure, he's no Jim Wren or J.D. Shaw, but then, who is?) But as far as being the PROGRAM COORDINATOR, Pitts is not getting the job done. I think he is trying to wear too many hats. Look at Vanguard, and how fantastic their shows have been recently. Shaw/Rennick/Rennick creating the music, Gaines/Toth creating the visual (and yes, that is an absolute embarrassment of riches, a level of design talent that few corps can even hope to aspire to), and the absolutely underrated and desperately important Scott Koter making sure everything works together. Phantom needs, first and foremost, a capable Program Coordinator. If they don't have that in place, all the changes in the world to design and instructional staff won't make a bit of difference. Yeah maybe they need a new program coordinator but some of you guys seem to think they are just available right off the market. Phantom lost two great designers to SCV..Rennick and Shaw. Those are two huge people to fill. So it's not an easy fix for any corp. That's like if BD lost Chandler, Scott Johnson and Todd Ryan. Do you think they would be the same if they lost these guys? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Land_Surfer Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 (edited) 15 minutes ago, DFA1970 said: Yeah maybe they need a new program coordinator but some of you guys seem to think they are just available right off the market. Phantom lost two great designers to SCV..Rennick and Shaw. Those are two huge people to fill. So it's not an easy fix for any corp. That's like if BD lost Chandler, Scott Johnson and Todd Ryan. Do you think they would be the same if they lost these guys? PR has had plenty of time to research, network and find more than capable individuals to backfill their leading brass, percussion, visual and coordinator positions. PR is still just a small town mid-western corps that doesn’t have the resources available to it that metro corps have. The number one attribute of a top-5 corps is money! Money buys the talented and most of all EXPERIENCED creative staff needed to build highly competitive corps. A novice creative staff will only drag a corps down, unfortunately, and it is showing at PR. Edited June 25, 2019 by Land_Surfer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricS Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 (edited) 10 hours ago, DFA1970 said: Yeah maybe they need a new program coordinator but some of you guys seem to think they are just available right off the market. Phantom lost two great designers to SCV..Rennick and Shaw. Those are two huge people to fill. So it's not an easy fix for any corp. That's like if BD lost Chandler, Scott Johnson and Todd Ryan. Do you think they would be the same if they lost these guys? The problem precedes your point. The problem is why did PR loose Rennick and Shaw to begin with. And I will also say once again, not the reason they left, but money talks. PR seems to have a lot of very loyal and avid fans. It's time to mount a major campaign to raise money for top notch staff. And not just for one year, a fund that perpetuates itself. Maybe PR needs to spend the money, go outside it's own staff and hire a firm who knows how to generate serious cash. Edited June 26, 2019 by EricS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hostrauser Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 34 minutes ago, DFA1970 said: Yeah maybe they need a new program coordinator but some of you guys seem to think they are just available right off the market. Phantom lost two great designers to SCV..Rennick and Shaw. Those are two huge people to fill. So it's not an easy fix for any corp. That's like if BD lost Chandler, Scott Johnson and Todd Ryan. Do you think they would be the same if they lost these guys? A program coordinator is not the same thing an arranger, which I specified. And no, it's not an EASY fix, but it happens all the time. Cavaliers lost Saucedo and Gaines. Vanguard has lost Casella, Rosander, and many other people over the past 25 years before finding this sweet spot. Cadets lost nearly everybody on their staff to the Boston Crusaders and went through Hopkinsgate a heck of a lot more recently than Phantom's changes; they are still doing okay. You're telling me Phantom can't draw in a better staff than The Academy or the Mandarins? Seriously? My point is: I can't remember the last time a corps bottomed out this hard due to staff changes. Scouts 20 years ago? Other corps GET IT DONE. The Regiment organization is not getting it done, and they need major changes, from the BOD on down. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn426 Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 (edited) 54 minutes ago, Land_Surfer said: PR has had plenty of time to research, network and find more than capable individuals to backfill their leading brass, percussion, visual and coordinator positions. PR is still just a small town mid-western corps that doesn’t have the resources available to it that metro corps have. The number one attribute of a top-5 corps is money! Money buys the talented and most of all EXPERIENCED creative staff needed to build highly competitive corps. A novice creative staff will only drag a corps down, unfortunately, and it is showing at PR. There are many successful designers in the activity.. One only need to look at the corps climbing the ranks, Or a look at the successful BOA Shows the past couple of years and who the designers are behind them... A look at the WGI ranks also wouldn't hurt as they would likely have designers that would pay attention to the trends and know how to implement them.. Edited June 25, 2019 by Glenn426 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwillis35 Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 1 hour ago, hostrauser said: Look at Vanguard, and how fantastic their shows have been recently. Shaw/Rennick/Rennick creating the music, Gaines/Toth creating the visual (and yes, that is an absolute embarrassment of riches, a level of design talent that few corps can even hope to aspire to), and the absolutely underrated and desperately important Scott Koter making sure everything works together. Phantom needs, first and foremost, a capable Program Coordinator. This is so true, and as you stated, very few corps or bands have the kind of talented and cutting-edge staff that Santa Clara has. It took a few years for it all to lock in for Vanguard, too. When Shaw and Rennick first left Phantom (along with the Bluecoats brass staff) and went to SCV, it wasn't a major hit at first. Even the best designers/arrangers need time to gel, to conceptualize what it is they plan to do. As the talent fell back into place for Vanguard, and a few other staff additions (like Gaines, Koter) you now have a monster. This is what BD has, what old Garfield Cadets had, what Star of Indiana had, and what Carolina Crown has. Most drum corps do not have this. That is the nature of the activity. I however sometimes feel that drum corps fans expect that every corps can come up with their dream team, and the truth is these things are the exception and not the norm. Because of staff fluctuation and the fact that drum corps is not a full-time job for most staff, there will always be new faces working for various corps. Unless you have big dollars and/or full-time jobs where you can hire excellent talent and keep them around, it's impossible to build a dream team. It all comes down to money. How did the Bluecoats and Crown push their way into the "game?" Money. Of course, money alone will not help you make good choices when hiring staff and designers. But it's a start. When you have less money, you have to be a good judge of young, up-and-coming talent and find a way to hire them, keep them focused and give them the freedom to learn and grow. BUT...inexperienced staff also need parameters and someone guiding them. This is where a wise program coordinator comes into play. Having said all that, I have no knowledge of how Phantom is operating these days or who is on staff. I know I really like the music book, but have not delved into their total show just yet. I'm pulling for Phantom because they have always been one of my favorite drum corps. So many legendary shows. I don't know if this applies to Phantom or not, but I often feel that drum corps with less experienced staff should concentrate more on allowing the music and movement to drive their shows and worry less about theme or concepts. Don't try to be cutting edge or overly innovative. Build the show on music and visual ideas that have been proven and work. Then spend your time cleaning the heck out of it and developing your talent. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2muchcoffeeman Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, EricS said: PR seems to have a lot of very loyal and avid fans. It's time to mount a major campaign to raise money for top notch staff. And not just for one year, a fund that perpetuates itself. Let's run the numbers on this idea. Very round numbers. Tour expenses typically consume half or more of a corps' annual budget. Admin/design/instruction staff will consume 25-33% of it. In a $1M annual budget, that amounts to, at the lower end, about $250K annually for the design & instructional braintrust. How much money do you need in a pile to throw off $250K annually? Assuming a 6 percent rate of return, you need an endowment of $4.16M. Assuming an 8 percent return, you need $3.125M That's low end -- a $1M budget and 25% to staff. If your budget is bigger and/or the design team is top-drawer, you can expect to spend what, $500K per year? I don't know. But if that's accurate, you'll need $8.33M in the bank at 6 percent to generate $500K each year. How many Phantom alums out there? No idea, but how about this: 150 members per year, 50 years, 2/3 retention rate. That comes to roughly 2,551 members over the past half a century; the precise number would move in a direction inverse to the average number of years each member marched PR (a greater average number of years in the corps means fewer alums, and vice-versa). Maybe 10 percent have died. That's 2,296 alums. YMMV At the low end, to amass $4.16M, you need to collect $1,812 from each alum (hey! 1812 could be a good number on which to hang a campaign). At the high end, to put together a $8.33M pot, you need $3,628 from each and every living alumnus. Doable? I suppose. In every population, there are going to be a handful of large-dollar donors who carry 80% of the weight. Every capital campaign ever conducted works from that assumption. If you can find a dozen people to write half-million-dollar checks, you're practically home free. But even if you could pull that off, you'll have to ask whether you've turned Phantom Regiment into a vanity project for alums. Edited June 25, 2019 by 2muchcoffeeman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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