Marching Mizzou - Guest Clinician Weekend

This fall I was invited by my friend and colleague Sam Mohler to join Marching Mizzou at the University of Missouri for their September 6th game against longtime rival Kansas. and it became a great weekend not just working as a photographer covering the marching band, but also as an guest clinician for the student Marching Mizzou Media Team.

As an introduction to those who don't know me - My name is Tony McCrackin, I'm a freelance photographer specializing in both portraiture and in the performing arts. I got my start when I was in college at Central Michigan University working for the School of Music on their social media and covering events, part of what I did in that role was bring a camera to CMU football games and cover the marching band, which made this a full circle moment 7 years after my last fall season at CMU. I've been full time for 6 years and in that time I've had a lot of fun and a lot of growth capturing the best moments of the best times of our lives.

My focus today is on Marching Mizzou though - and some incredible things they have going on that I want to highlight. (photo by Nate Brown)

Student Media Team

This is something I wish every university marching program was doing. One section of the marching band is the media team. They have their section's 'tech' Sam who works directly with the band director, Dr. Amy Knopps, to help steer the team and approve content before it goes out, and a great graphic designer Jasmyne Tyler. The rest of the team are students given the opportunity to be 'in' the marching band to be around everything and shoot, edit, post, and grow.

This is effectively a semester-long group project where students have a role of photographer, videographer, social media manager, or some combination of those roles on their team that has to work together and help each other. These students majors include photojournalism, digital communications, and even unrelated majors to this team - though all of them marched previously, usually at least one season with Marching Mizzou.

The goal of this team being that the social media is active with great content, the band gets more visibility within the university and their alumni, and the marching program has more donations coming in, and from what I can see everything is working.

Learning by doing is, in my opinion, the way to do it. I was never formally taught photography or took a class, just watched a lot of youtube, sought advice and critique from other photographers, and committed to getting better with any time I had. These students are given so many of those opportunities incubated in an environment that is strong, promotes them, and gives them countless chances to try, try, and try again. Just like they all learned as members of the band, sometimes the best way to get good at something is to practice every day. And they are, and it shows. I wish I had something like this at their age.

The Weekend

Friday afternoon I got to campus just in time for their last rehearsal before the game, meet the team, and cover the rehearsal.

Note: all photos shared directly in this post are photos I took, and are edited from a Mizzou Athletics preset

We had the chance to do a '5 minute edit' with everyone on the team where they had the chance to edit one of my photos of the Boston Crusaders victory run from DCI Championships. I had the chance to talk with each of them about things I think they did well, things I might have changed, editing tips and tricks, and some of the objective and subjective elements in a well edited photo.

Here are those edits, with my edit up first.

Friday evening we moved into a large donor gala and then a drone show where a small portion of the marching band performed.

Saturday was game day, and I'm grateful I worked for the Colts Drumline for a few years because even after working several NFL games, the game day atmosphere at Mizzou had a lot going on - and absolutely electric.

Starting off at SEC Nation that morning, another small group of the marching band showed up early morning to make a long day longer, and bring the sprit to this televised event hosted on their campus. This was perhaps my favorite section of the weekend just because I could operate at a slower pace to find more creative shots, and help students also find shots, talk about priorities, talk about technique, and see their photos and be able to offer the 'what if you tried this' and see them try it, and create photos that they're even more proud of.

Then we get to the actual game, a game against rival Kansas, who the football team hadn't played at home for 18 years, since before Mizzou joined the SEC. A game with high energy, high stakes, and luckily, a great end result for the University of Missouri.

I got to work with and offer help and advice to the team covering all parts of the game, and also got to walk away with so many photos I loved. One part of this that I really appreciated was going through the stands and meeting so many of the great performing members of Marching Mizzou, and taking photos of many of the people I was able to meet.

After all returning home and going through our photos, I had one last chance to work with the media team, on a zoom call where everyone had the chance to edit a selection of their favorite photos from the day and I got the chance to offer critique on their work and help them continue to grow over the season.

Overall,

I wanted to send the biggest thanks out to Marching Mizzou, Dr. Knopps and Sam Mohler for having me out for such a great weekend experience. It's an honor to be able to be a guest somewhere where I can be treated so kindly, make great photos, and make the most of my passion for education helping some incredible young people grow creatively and be better prepared for the world.

I hope I am able to work with Marching Mizzou again, and potentially even find some other collegiate programs where I can show up for the game, make great photos, and capture a segment of the Marching Arts I haven't been able to spend enough time with recently.

To see full galleries from the whole team (mine mixed in with students), here those are:

https://marchingmizzou.smugmug.com/Other/Mizzou-v-Kansas-Tony