Dance Film - Twirling

Research and Planning

Paige’s history with twirling - has been competing most of her life and won many titles for her twirling routines whilst competing internationally, she now also teaches it. Therefore we have been looking at the history of twirling, how it originated, what it was for before it was seen as a competitive sport in its own right.

The sport progressed into the armies of some countries which twirled with rifles during marches. When the army was parading, they added a rifle twirler to the front of the marchers. Obviously, the sport has progressed a long way and nowadays it’s much different. It turned into a balanced baton with usually white rubber ends which are used for safety. Rather than being something that is solely linked to the military, it is now a sport in which teams compete and show their routines in front of an audience, for entertainment purposes.

The research for this film has consisted of looking at different routines and sound tracks. We wanted to grasp an idea of the complexity of routines and the traditional marching music.

We have made the decision to have one dancer, as using a group may not appear as aesthetically pleasing as they may not be in sync and it might look complicated on screen.

We have also made the decision to shoot outside as twirling can be a dangerous sport if it is not done in a safe environment, by choosing an outside location we don’t put our dancer or anyone else under any risks

For research we looked at different videos of routines that twirlers have done before, comparing groups twirling against individuals, which confirmed that we only wanted to use one dancer as when you watch a group twirling it can become a bit confusing to watch and you aren't able to focus on one dancer to capture all of their routine and skills.

Our dancer shall be Paige's sister, Demi. She has also competed internationally in twirling competitions and has many different routines that she can perform from memory. This would mean that our shoot will hopefully be rather smooth as she is confident dancing for the camera and in her routines, so there won't need to be any choreography to learn.

Technical Skills

The production will be outside, using natural lighting so no external lights will be needed. Having our film shot outside eliminates any dangers for the dancer or the crew as twirling needs quite a lot of space to be effective

The camera we will use will be a Panasonic Lumix G85, this will make the shoot simpler as the camera is lightweight so will be easy to use both handheld and on a tripod. Also, as it is my own camera we will have unlimited access to using it.