If you thought taking good contra dance photos was hard, wait till you try video. I've got about a year's work ahead of me to get the technical skills up to snuff.
Nonetheless, the Concord Scout House dance has become famous for having become a magnet dance for high school and college kids. They fill up about a third of the hall. I interviewed a bunch of them about the appeal.
Doug, I really like your video. It was neat to see the short comments from the participants. I think your video sooting/editing skills are much better than you give yourself credit for! I'm curious how much footage you shoot and how long it took to edit?
Posted by: Jeff Henderson | January 18, 2008 at 10:25 PM
I took probably an hour of footage for this. A lot of the interviews I couldn't use because I tried using the internal mike for them, and not my new lav setup. It was a 2 hour editing job in iMovie.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | January 19, 2008 at 04:58 AM
Sweet!
Posted by: Robin Shapiro | January 19, 2008 at 09:00 AM
I recently went on a long journey through the depths of YouTube after a curious friend asked me to tell him about contradance. I looked and looked for a video that would begin to capture the spirit of the dance and the beauty I find there. I can say with certainty that this little video is better than anything I found on YouTube! I'm delighted to see you turn your considerable talent to capturing video of one of the activities I love best.
Posted by: romanlily | January 19, 2008 at 02:26 PM
What a wonderful comment, thank you.
Doug
Posted by: Doug Plummer | January 19, 2008 at 02:44 PM
Hey Doug,
I'm really like this little video. It was brought to my attention by Beth, the girl in the purple tanktop from the first shot. I basically learned to dance at the Scout House before moving back to Seattle, and I miss the people there tremendously.
So you're a Seattle resident, eh? Do you have any photos of videos of the Phinney Ridge dance? I'll actually be headed there later this afternoon - maybe I'll see you around.
Posted by: Brandon Martin-Anderson | January 25, 2008 at 04:25 PM
Brandon,
Thanks for the note. I go to the "geezer" dance on Thursday and rarely make it to the Friday dance, mostly because it's Shabbas dinner night and I've usually drunk a little too much wine to feel safe on a dance floor. But I want to check out the scene there--it sounds like it's gotten way popular.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | January 25, 2008 at 04:35 PM