A Summer of Drum Corps

This summer I was fortunate to accept a position as a videographer for the Boston Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps. Before this summer, I never thought I would be able to professionally follow and document the marching arts. One of the instructors of my high school marching band had told me about the position which opened my eyes to this new opportunity to combine two of my passions: music & video.

I really had no clue what I was getting myself into, and now I know that drum corps is one of those activities you only truly understand by living it. Most people would gawk at the thought voluntarily dedicating their entire summer to traveling overnight on buses, sleeping on the floor in local high schools, and spending all day on a sunny field in the 100 degree heat.

Our media team was tasked with documenting and marketing the drum corps throughout the summer. This was the first year that the Boston Crusaders have had a full media team, so there wasn’t much of a precedent set. We had a lot of freedom with the direction of our work so we pushed each other and ourselves creatively to create something special and set the bar high for those who follow us.

We developed several weekly series such as Crusader of the Week and Crusader Cam – the latter being a series where we handed several iPods to the members to record their daily lives. These became a highlight of our week because never knew what footage we would be cutting until we collected the iPods.

My favorite project started as a crazy idea but turned into what I think is an impressive product. For over a month, I put a pair of GoPro cameras on different members and their instruments to capture the show from the members’ perspective. The end result became a multi-camera view of the entire show from the field. The video was challenging to cut together seamlessly, yet it was such a joy to see it come together before my eyes.

This summer was eye-opening in a lot of ways and helped me grow both personally and professionally. Coming in at this point was a fantastic opportunity because I was able to witness the growth of the organization as a whole. I’m excited to see what’s in store for the near and distant future and can’t wait to see where they go. It became clear this summer that the Boston Crusaders and their parent organization Inspire Arts & Music are shooting for the stars and won’t stop until they reach them.