Very cool! What were the two patterns they made before the Harry Potter logo? It looked like two overlapping but off center circles, and then some sort of smiling cyclops?
Y’know, it’s really tough to impress me with marching band formations. Most of the things that really seem to impress people are just the two easiest maneuvers there are: The float-to-set and the follow-the-leader drill. And yeah, they used a few of those… But then, taking full-field-sized images, and rotating them, while staying in formation? That’s hard. And doing that while actually animating them? Simply mind-boggling.
It’s amazing, considering that they have such a short time for practice, sometimes just a week between home games. And while it’s all going on, they have to play music as well! Very impressive.
Nope, basically you just have the first picture, then the second picture. each person moves from point A to point B in a set number of steps no matter if its 2’ or 20 yards. I am sure there are computerized drill modeling programs available nowadays to help. Our marching staff in Freelancers had a big table with little figurines that they worked out drill on to make sure moves would “work” and to give them a better idea of what it would look like on the field. for 3D animation types, this kind of stuff is childs play.
Gosh I figured for sure that someone had the entire thing plotted out down to the stride differential between petite and lanky band members. As former child dancer who sweated over choreography, I am so impressed by their coordination and cooperation. And while playing, too! This bunch needs a Doritos commercial or some other rewarding endorsement.
The Ohio State band calls themselves TBDBITL…The Best Damn Band In The Land. As a parent of a multi-year state championship high school band, I can tell you these kids work their asses off in the rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Awesome work by OSU.
I know from talking to our drill instructors way back when they do have guidelines for maximum distance traveled for playing vs not playing and for things like percussion sections who tend to be less mobile than other sections. The tricky part of show design is things like not writing drill that has a section hauling ass while playing a particularly complex part of the music or having a section that should be heard well in a section of music way out in the backfield or worse FACING backfield. It happens but shows that factor for this are more effective and tend to score higher in competition. This is why you tend to see DCI lead soprano sections rarely wander outside of a box formed by the home side sideline, midfield, and the 35 yard lines.
It also made me realise I’ve been spending waaay too much pre-Halloween time with the SCP archives. When I saw the title, I immediately thought of a slightly different marching band.
I have spawned 2 more, and one is in the Redcoat Band at the University of Georgia. I get tickled pink to see the reception and admiration that the average fan shows for the band. It’s far better than high school! My eldest gets to lead off the day (on a rotation basis) with the Battle Hymn solo. They wrap up the day with that as well.
It gets very dusty in that stadium.
These guys practice 3-4 hours a day, 3 times a week. On the practice field at 7am on game day, sweating in the stands, and not done until well after the game.
Not just UGA, of course, but all college bands work their ass off just to play and have fun. Not enough folks know that.
The OSU band absolutely rocks. Here’s their show from last year.
When I was in high school, our band director created our marching drill for the first 2 years, and a professional drill-creation company did the last 2. I preferred the professional drill company, because it gave each of us a printout of exactly where to go for each set. They also made sure that none of us had to travel too far for each set, whereas our band director’s homemade drillsets occasionally involved distances that were too far to reasonably travel while playing. There were occasions where the form had to be changed in the middle of band camp as a result–not fun!