An excellent cast of dancers overshadowed by excessive editing and camerawork.
I thought we'd learned how to film dancers by now. But I suppose it's still not common knowledge among all directors.
Great way to kill a dancer's performance is with too many quick cuts, especially on all the major hits, and worse, cut to showing them from the shoulders up. So we literally have zero clues what their feet are doing. Dancers use their whole bodies, head to toe. Why? Just why?
And then the overbearing (at times unimpressive) effects and editing. I was stunned by the unnecessary effects applied to the Jabbawockeez performance. I mean if there was ever a group that has proven all you need to do is hit record and hush, it's the Jabbawockeez. Instead, the editor forced on us filters, and reversed speeds, and as mentioned before, too many cuts on most of the important musical moments in their performance.
Cutting away from the performances to show people watching the performance is also a great way to kill a performance. You had too many amazing dancers on this project to make us look at anything else besides them.
The camera did too much! The movement we wanted to see was with the dancers, not how many ways the camera can pan and zoom and what not. Some of that, I imagine was the editor, but some of that was intended camerawork and it was unnecessary. It truly ruined what should have been really impactful moments in the dancers' performances.
ALL of these dancers have amassed a significant presence on social media, filming themselves, partnering with filmmakers who have mastered filming them. I don't know why these people weren't consulted for this project.
And this is no dig, it's just honesty about the art of acting. If a dancer is not also an actor, trained in the craft, it shows. There was too much "acting" imposed on a cast of dancers. It made for dead air, awkwardness, and it wasn't needed to fuel the story. Should have kept it simple and just told the story with dance. That would have been enough. You know, like the Nutcracker.
All in all it was certainly a feel good project and I enjoyed the heart and joy of it. Def loved seeing all my favorite dancers, but just wish I could have seen their FULL performances, uninterrupted and uninhibited.
I would love to see this become a holiday tradition with improvements and better care shown to capturing the art of dance.
I thought we'd learned how to film dancers by now. But I suppose it's still not common knowledge among all directors.
Great way to kill a dancer's performance is with too many quick cuts, especially on all the major hits, and worse, cut to showing them from the shoulders up. So we literally have zero clues what their feet are doing. Dancers use their whole bodies, head to toe. Why? Just why?
And then the overbearing (at times unimpressive) effects and editing. I was stunned by the unnecessary effects applied to the Jabbawockeez performance. I mean if there was ever a group that has proven all you need to do is hit record and hush, it's the Jabbawockeez. Instead, the editor forced on us filters, and reversed speeds, and as mentioned before, too many cuts on most of the important musical moments in their performance.
Cutting away from the performances to show people watching the performance is also a great way to kill a performance. You had too many amazing dancers on this project to make us look at anything else besides them.
The camera did too much! The movement we wanted to see was with the dancers, not how many ways the camera can pan and zoom and what not. Some of that, I imagine was the editor, but some of that was intended camerawork and it was unnecessary. It truly ruined what should have been really impactful moments in the dancers' performances.
ALL of these dancers have amassed a significant presence on social media, filming themselves, partnering with filmmakers who have mastered filming them. I don't know why these people weren't consulted for this project.
And this is no dig, it's just honesty about the art of acting. If a dancer is not also an actor, trained in the craft, it shows. There was too much "acting" imposed on a cast of dancers. It made for dead air, awkwardness, and it wasn't needed to fuel the story. Should have kept it simple and just told the story with dance. That would have been enough. You know, like the Nutcracker.
All in all it was certainly a feel good project and I enjoyed the heart and joy of it. Def loved seeing all my favorite dancers, but just wish I could have seen their FULL performances, uninterrupted and uninhibited.
I would love to see this become a holiday tradition with improvements and better care shown to capturing the art of dance.
