In reviewing dance highlights for the year, I noticed that two dancers kept popping up repeatedly. Rather than have them clog up the other lists, I thought I’d break them out into a separate post.
DCLX+BMJB=TCB
This is a little project I did because I recently bought a new camera, and now I am basically teaching myself how to use it in addition to learning photography and videography from scratch. It’s been something that I’ve been wanting to get into for awhile now, and just decided to jump to it.
Other than being an unabashed fan of the Boilermaker Jazz Band, I did this mostly as an exercise in learning how to cut between multiple video angles. Btw, thanks to David Soltysik for letting me play with the original files of his recordings from that night. You can see his footage on his site.
I know it’s not close to perfect, but it was a good learning experience. Looking back, I may have been too much of a slave to include certain shots simply because I like looking at them. It was a great opportunity to catch the Boilermakers in rare form as they were on fire for most of that night as evidenced by your best set in the house shot of Rich tearing apart his drum set. Plus there was the energy of the DCLX crowd and the dancers in the circle.
Everything is in chronological order, other than two short shots, and starts with the end of the second encore song: the theme from Sanford & Son. This was a compromise from showing the whole thing, and I wanted some time to acknowledge the band and show off the fun little bits that happened in between the two songs. David cut out at the end of the song, and I was about to pack it in myself, but I kept rolling on a hunch—really a hope that they would play again and they did not disappoint.
In case you’re wondering, the camera next to the drummer, Rich is the new camera: a Panasonic Lumix GH2. I was on the opposite side of the stage recording with an old point and shoot camera, a Sony Cybershot W350. That one was an impromptu decision earlier in the evening when I realized that I had it with me and decided that if I’m going to do this, then I’m just going over the top with it. David is recording with his hand held video camera in the middle of the crowd.
For those of you trying to decide on your next camera purchase, this is actually a good opportunity to compare video between a point & shoot, a dedicated video cam, and an almost DSLR. Although, it should be noted that despite the fact that the Cybershot shoots in HD widescreen, the rendering settings I used to create the final video was not kind to that camera’s footage and made it worse than it was.
Enjoy this little love letter from me to the Boilermakers and everyone at DCLX. Comments and critiques would be appreciated.
Wandering & Pondering visits the GMU Swing Club
I did a thing for the George Mason University Swing Club a couple of weeks ago where they asked me to do a video presentation.
A Word on Swing #2
Presenting the wildly anticipated second episode of A Word on Swing.
This has been a pretty fun project for us. As you’ll see, it’s still a little rough around the edges (and a little bit on the inside). What you see here, is the sum total of my video editing experience as I’m treating this video blog as a learning opportunity.
Favorite Performances 2010: Introduction
There really is no method to my favoriting madness. The actual dancing in a video doesn't necessarily have to be good for me to like it. Given the volume of videos I see, I tend to appreciate effort more than execution. Random things will often jump out at me in a clip that have nothing to do with dancing. I’ll even favorite videos of dancing I don’t like if only to watch it later to make sure I don’t. I have some vague hope that I would help compile some sort of sociological/anthropological/psychological study/historical record of our scene. Until then I’ll have to settle for “Hey look! This is eff’n kewl!” along with the occasional wardrobe malfunction and people falling down.