From: jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu (grungy (John F. Gladu))
Newsgroups: rec.arts.marching.misc
Subject: The Television Ate Our Show...
Followup-To: rec.arts.marching.misc
Date: 5 Jan 1993 19:26:45 GMT
Organization: Systems Support Center, BCM
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: j.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu

After reading about what the Blockbuster people did to both bands at
"their" bowl game, it seems like time to ask: what use is television?

A regular season game may be televised, but how many seconds of coverage
will the bands get during halftime?  The TV producers thing that halftime
is for p(L)aying commercials and highlights from someone else's game.

And when the band does get on the tube it's usually a field camera with a
LIVE mike that picks up only the single instrument it's pointed at.  How
often do we hear the entire band?  How often do we hear the mellophone
part? [No insult intended :)]  The only person who wants to hear just one
horn is that player or his family.

Rice hasn't been to a bowl game since 1961 so I can only imagine what
they'd do to one of *our* shows.  But members of the MOB did help out at
the Bluebonnet Bowl [may it R.I.P. :( ] and both bands at the BB got to do
their own full show AND there was a mass high school band extravaganza
*afterward*.  As I perceived it, there was no out-of-the-ordinary time
squeeze on the two college bands...

What about pro halftimes?  They're all televised - wouldn't it be great
if...

Well, the MOB has done *one*, and I would decline to do another even if
they begged.  We needed something to fill in a four-week gap in our
schedule so I suggested that we approach the Oilers about doing a halftime.
 To our surprise they said 'yes' and said 'how about the Monday night
Kansas City game?' ('91).  We thought it would be great.  We had what we
thought would be a strong show.

And then there were ABC's constraints...

Even our pre-game routine got hacked.  We had to change our formations to
let the teams run through us.  We had to drop tunes to meet their time
constraints.  It's a wonder that we got to do the Star Spangled Banner.

We weren't allowed to play during times-out.  At all.
The Astrodome plays commercials during all times-out as well...

There was no other band to run overtime so we thought we'd have the whole
halftime, but ABC did tell us "eight minutes only..." (weeks in advance)
"...did we say eight minutes?  We meant seven minutes..."  (the week
before)
"...we may need you to cut another minute off of your show..." (Monday
evening)
Easy to cut a marching routine at the end of a song, but a scripted comedy
show that builds toward the end... is destroyed.

There was no other band, but we discovered that we were sharing halftime
with the local presentation of Earl Campbell's induction into the Pro
Football Hall of Fame.  Six minutes...
...plus a three minute standing ovation.  And the field mike that our
announcer was to use LEFT after Earl's accolade.  No script.  We eventually
got our field P.A. mike (there for our vocalist) to our announcer and some
people near field level could almost hear him.

An ABC storm-trooper gave Ken the slashing-across-the-throat sign in the
middle of "Shout", which *was* our final tune but it was only half-way
through.  He picked the next big chord, cut us off, and whistled us off the
field.

A deeply satisfying performance.  And NO air-time.

We did get to see the Oilers win (albeit on the diamond-vision because we
had field-level corner-of-the-field seats behind the swarm of
photographers).  Pretty confusing.  The press box was on the far side of
the field, so the diamond-vision image was reversed from our reality.

It *was* interesting to be able to practice my trumpet (not particularly
quietly) throughout the game because it was so *damned* loud in the
'dome...

Television? NO THANK YOU!
Any other tales of woe out there?  Any GOOD experiences?

bcnu - grungy (John Gladu) Rice U. MOBster '73-'92
Systems Support Center -- Baylor College of Medicine
INTERNET: jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu  | VOICE: (713)798-7370
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