Newsgroups: rec.juggling
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 05:22:59 -0500 
From: Benjamin Rudd Schoenberg <bs26+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Videos are HERE!
Distribution: na

I too was very disappointed in the videos this year.  In defense of the
producers, it seems like they are trying to make do with very few
resources.  The credits seem to suggest that it's mostly just Don Reed
running around with one camera trying to tape everything, editing, etc. 
It's tough with such a small crew.

Before I launch into my grand opinions about the Montreal videos,
someone asked about investing in some of the better IJA videos.  IMHO,
go with the 1989 highlights, titled "Airborne!".  You'll see great
Seniors (Cindy Marvell, Michael Menes, Larry Vee), Teams (Passing Zone,
Doubble Troubble, Clockwork), and Juniors (Johnathan Rosenberg backing
into his prop stand :-)).  There's also a healthy dosage of Anthony
Gatto in a special segment which is very nicely done.  It's also cheap
($20 I think).  After that, I like '91 (St. Louis) with Ignatov, Gatto,
Doubble Troubble, Andrew Head, etc.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled whining about the '92
vids.  Firstly, let me say that I really appreciate having the videos at
all.  Here's what I thought about this year's:

It would be nice to give more of a sense of what it was like to be
there.  It would only add about 90 seconds to show a little of
registration, the dorms, walking to the gym, the trip to Berri Square,
etc.  There were many times during the viewing of the tape where things
got bogged down in some inconsequential speech where I thought to
myself, "they could show some of what was happening all around the gym
instead".  A little bit goes a long way, and it  would be so easy to add
some more personality: show more faces, interview more attendees, ask
people to show off what they're working on, etc.

I think the entire winning Juniors routine (Sean McKinney) was included,
and there is no Juniors tape by the way.  Unfortunately, some great
performances were missing, the best of which has already been mentioned
(Gulko's devil stick routine).  I missed the usual way of showing a few
seconds from every Juniors competitor's routine.  I would have liked to
see Sean Blue's 9 ring flash, not to mention Jay Gilligan and Adam
Kariotis.  And a minor nitpick: the joggling results were printed really
small while the name of each event was right above them in huge letters.
 Of course, I could be biased there :-).

In general, the presentation seemed formulaic, like a mechanical
selection of all the "necessary events".  The camera quality was also
poorer than I remembered (the titles seemed really crisp in comparison
to the picture).  The camera was poorly placed at all the competitions,
and there was more unsteadiness than in previous years.

Could one of the IJA Board folks (Perry?) kindly pass this along to the
Video Coordinator (Steve Salberg?)?  If not, I'd be happy to rewrite
this as a letter.  Does the video production crew need volunteers?  I
hesitate to ask, since I'm always plenty busy at conventions just having
fun, but I figure it's time I did something helpful.  I have a fair
amount of video and film experience, and would be happy to help in
production or editing.
-Ben
new address!
benjamin@math.washington.edu