Sometimes you have to sit back and watch your own show with some fresh eyes. You have to see it from an audience member’s point of view as if you’ve never watched it before to really gain clarity on what to do next. I mean, we know EXACTLY what parts of the show we need to work on cleaning wise (drill, choreography, performance, whatever…) but design-wise, does everything flow together? When I watched our show live on Saturday, our first contest, I felt awful for our kids. It just wasn’t good. They had done SO MUCH better in rehearsals and I was right to believe they would come off the floor beaten. However, the good part was that they were not broken and they knew exactly what this meant: they need to work to get better.
Anyway, I watched the show on my iPad over and over, pointing out every little mistake to myself and getting upset over every little thing. As a director, that’s super unhealthy. I knew it, so I finally put the iPad down. I didn’t look at the show again until today, and like I said, I decided to look with fresh eyes. Here’s what I saw…
1. Uniforms. Honestly, not nearly as rough as they seemed. I was worried that the color under the arm would be a big, glaring mistake on our pristine white costumes, but it wasn’t so bad. I have decided that it’s mandatory for the guard to have nude undergarments and white leggings to wear underneath though, so that’s something.
2. Concept. Wow! We have seriously developed our concept this year. Almost perfectly from beginning to end. I gotta say it’s thanks to our new drill writer/show designer Justin, and we work so well together! I’m looking at adjusting the ending to REALLY round it out in the long run, but overall we are getting it.
3. Performance. Ouch!! Those poor kids looked terrified out there. And we have several young adults on our team with many years experience out there! Definitely need to get them to relax and perform the show more. Applying our performance faces and bodies in our basics blocks will shine that up.
4. Flags. What can I say to the beauty of our flags? Definitely one of my favorite sets we have ever used.
5. Makeup. Not everyone followed suit on makeup. Some of the eyes are completely lost to the flesh of their faces. Probably a good thing right now so it hides the terror in their eyes, but later we are going to want to see that ferocity let loose with some incredible winged eyes.
6. Floor. Nope, not going there. It’s black, that’s all that matters.
7. Prop. Honestly, and don’t ever tell him I said this, my dad was right. It looks a lot more prism-esque in the gymnasium lights than it did in our little warehouse. I was starting to make a plan for how we could paint it black and give it a white border to look like the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon logo prism, but I’m glad I didn’t put in the extra effort because it does look nice.
8. Choreography. It LOOKS like the choreography is too hard for the kids. I know for a fact that it’s not. A million factors clearly played in here and we are just going to have to keep dealing with those in stride.
Ok, so that’s all of the thoughts going through my head as I watch this show, right? Now I can use those thoughts and make a plan for what we need to do as a staff. Here’s the thing that it really all boils down to; will the performers practice at home during the week? That’s really going to be the road block to this entire system because our show has some SERIOUS potential. However, just for example, we have a veteran member on rifle this year who is having a hard time with a backhand in the choreography. Whenever this person gets called out for it in rehearsal I get ready for an excuse like “well the music is too fast, my hand slipped, my gloves got in the way…” etc. until the cows come home. But does this person go home and practice during the week so that the backhand looks perfect the following weekend? Nope. As a matter of fact, that rifle choreography is one of the first things that the guard learned and this one person is still making the same exact mistake every weekend, even when the rest of the line appears to have gotten it down. It’s almost like the mistake is now ingrained on the muscle memory as part of the choreography. And this is just ONE example. There are a multitude of other positions in the show where other people do the same thing. These kids have to realize they should be working hard daily if they want to go anywhere. We have the team up top, but THIS is going to be the determining factor in our placement this year; how dedicated our members are to their show and to perfection.
Can we do it? Yep. Will we? I’m not sure yet.
<3 Jackie
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