Throw It Down The Movie...A Review

My name is Luke Bauerlein and I marched euphonium in the Bluecoats drum and Bugle corps from 2001-2005. I also taught as a visual instructor there in '06 and '07. I was originally asked to be interviewed in the fall of 2005 for what turned into Throw It Down, a documentary that provides an intimate look into the life on the road, and otherwise, of a Div I drum and bugle corps. Three years in the making, the movie is about the 2006 Bluecoats' Connexus season, but it doesn't serve as a mere chronicle of the events that took place during that year, rather, it captures the essence of all drum corps (at least, as much as any film could portray, IMO) by focusing on the specific experiences, hopes, dreams, and stories of a single corps at a single moment in its history.

The movie’s focus is the corps’ brutal summer tour on the bus, but it touches on fundraising, volunteers, food prep, traditions and a host of specific details that are unique to this corps but speak to the experiences of many. It strikes the perfect balance between giving a realistic portrayal of the summer for the die-hards and insiders (oh yes, there’s a bus war…) while still providing enough cursory explication to the newcomer or casual fan (“The members use the field as a grid to understand where they’re moving in the drill…” says corps Director David Glassgow at one point.)

I had the pleasure of viewing the most recent cut of the film when I went up to Connecticut this weekend to record voice narration for the final cut of the film. It’s true that a much longer, hour and forty-five minute cut was shown to the corps this August, but the version I saw, cut down to a much leaner 88 minutes, is a completely different movie. The transformation that this film has undergone in the past three months is phenomenal. It’s intelligent, spiritual, philosophical and yet completely visceral. There is pain, humor, triumph and an overwhelming sense of love that pours from the film: love of performance, of excellence, and the love the members have for their corps and each other. Make no mistake, I’m not talking about some strange, hippy love fest, I’m talking about the kindof honest, hard-earned love that comes from the shared experiences of hardship and adversity: 110 degree heat, knuckle calluses, broken limbs, eight hour bus rides… The close up pan around the inner circle of the Coats’ post show huddle (in the tunnel at San Antonio) as the corps sings “Autumn Leaves” en mass, is as intimate and piercing a look at a corps as you’ll ever see. It’s emotional, but it’s also very real.

The featured interviews with 2006 Drum major Joe Beitman, Bluecoats’ alumni Kurt Mergen, and Bill Hamilton (the only person to serve the corps as a performing member, instructor, and director) are all outstanding, each giving us a unique glimpse of drum corps. These are people that are passionate and knowledgeable about the activity, and their enthusiasm for drum corps is infectious. The supplemental interviews with other Bluecoats members, particularly the brief but charming correspondence with Rumi Tamura, a rookie trumpet player from Japan, serve to flesh out a complete corps picture.

Another one of the film’s greatest triumphs is its music, which expertly weaves a brilliantly composed score with the music of the 2006 corps. The music pushes the movie along, bridges segments together and creates a unique sonic world that grabs you the way the first hit in a drum corps show is supposed to. Horns, drums, marimbas and metronomes now subtly (and not so subtly) underscore the interviews, keeping the drum corps experience ever present, even when the images take us away from the field. The opening a cappella choral of “Hallelujah,” a warm up for the hornline (both sung and played,) becomes a haunting and gorgeous motif as the film progresses.

This is not your typical cinema verite documentary. There are special effects, dream sequences, actors, and plenty of other conventions that are played with to maximum effect. The movie is ambitious, but grounded in the music and experiences of the people it tracks. The result is an intelligent and coherent artistic achievement that engages the heart as well as the head. For real. It’s good.

The producers plan on shopping this around to whomever might want to pick it up/distribute it. Right now, a copy has been sent to the folks at BOA in the hopes that they might be interested in showing it on screens in Indianapolis during the week of Grand Nationals. There has been some talk of getting DCI involved as well. However, when you’re making a self-financed documentary, even when the content is there, and boy is it ever there, it can be extremely difficult to find a distributor. I sincerely hope that this movie finds a home for itself.

For those interested in gathering more information, here is a link to the official movie website. But I warn you, the movie trailer and the clip from the film are extremely outdated at this point and NOT great representations of the film in its current state. They’re not bad, but I wouldn’t form too many opinions based on them.

http://throwitdownthemovie.com/ThrowitdownmovieTrailer.html