1977 Flushing Raider Marching Band - Russian Sailors Dance (in slidescreen)

Under the direction of R. Winston Blackford, the Raiders perform their fall, 1977 opening number, "Russian Sailors Dance" by R.M. Gliere, arranged by Dick Moon.

This was my freshman year, and as such, my defining influence in forming my expectaton of what marching band should be. A far cry from the armed woodnymphs and gun-slinging ballerinas of today's ensembles, this was all about going there out and just "blowing 'em away". (We may have actually succeded on occasion.)

On the movie-making side. I like this particular excercise. I had been trying out ways to crop the 4:3 footage to get the desired 16:9 panoramic content with out sacrificing too much quality, yet keep the original 4:3 tight shots. In this way, I was also able to balance out the frequent long-range in-and-out zooming. Once rendered in each format, I pondered over how to combine the 4:3 and 16:9 clips together so that they would flow into each other unobtrusively. Thus, through trial and error, I hit upon this "sliding screen format" to move between the different screen sizes. I'm super happy with the way this turned out!

Of all the number I played in band, this is among my all-time favorites.

Regretably, the original 8mm video isn't in the best condition after 33 years. But, I hope nevertheless, that you enjoy the encouraging results of my efforts to present this now classic performance in the best light possible.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Russian
• Sailors'
• Dance
• Flushing
• Senior
• High
• School
• Marching
• Raider
• Band
• drumline
• colorguard
• drum
• corps
• style
• military
• bearing
• competion
• percussion
• MBA
• film
• editing
• movie-making
• sliding
• 16:9
• 4:9
• format

[alliancepolkas]

Nice job Matt!