To view all of Outlet's music videos, click here.
Members of the Outlet dance troupe have been losing sleep and anxiously waiting for Nov. 18 for the past four weeks. The cause? The Red Bull Bracket Reel competition.
The results were announced at 1 p.m. — Outlet has made it to the final round of the competition, and will compete against Urban Movement, a group from Illinois State University.
“We are so motivated now,” said Alyssa Morgan, Outlet’s president. “I feel like we have been capable of this all along. It means so much to the team and I that our school, families and the Muncie community is with us on this journey.”
The competition started Oct. 21 with a qualifying round with a total of 42 groups. It required each group to make a music video, and those videos were voted on by the public through social media.
Each group is allowed a maximum of 12 members, which includes the dancers and the videographers. Outlet’s team has 11 dancers and videographer Will House.
The 20 groups with the most votes were given to judges Megan Batoon, Will “Willdabeast” Adams and Ronnie Abaldonado, who picked the top 16.
The competition went on from there, with Outlet moving to the top eight, top four and now the top two.
Outlet first learned of the competition from Tiffany Verdon, the student brand manager for Red Bull.
Verdon said Red Bull has done bracket competitions before, but those were for snowboarding and surfing, activities Ball State students don’t have much opportunity to do.
“When we first started this, we never expected to get this far,” Morgan said. “It’s like when you decide to go on a trip, and you’re planning for so long and then all of a sudden it’s one day before you leave and you start getting really excited.”
“We’ve come so far since the first video,” said Lauren Matan, a freshman psychology major and Outlet dancer. “We’re keeping up with votes against performing arts schools in California. I never thought I’d be a part of something like this, especially my freshman year.”
Each round has a specific song and theme the team needs to use in their video. The competition also focuses on video editing, so video edits need to be made that also go with the theme.
Morgan said videographer House is half of the team.
“It’s a two-part competition, and he does all of the video and editing parts,” Morgan said.
For its latest video, the group filmed at a hotel from about 1:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. after voting closed for the quarterfinals.
“Everybody was in such a team mode,” said Kaitlyn Ewing, a junior hospitality major. “We were passionate and we really felt like a Red Bull team.”
Kirstin Connor, a sophomore marketing major, said the process has made members of the team more comfortable dancing in front of a camera, or film dancing.
“It’s very different than performing live,” Connor said. “There’s a lot more that you have to think about instead of just stage presence. Do I look at the camera or not? What does my face really look like right now?”
It’s up to each group to reach out and get people to vote for their video through social media. So far, the team has used social media, announcements in classes, flyers and cold-calling fraternity houses to get people to vote for its videos.
“We always try to think, ‘Where haven’t we gone?’” Ewing said. “We have to go where there are people, and we try to make it as easy as possible.”
One challenge of getting votes was the time frame Outlet had to work with. The competition is based in California, which is three hours behind Muncie due to time zones.
For the semifinal round, Outlet was competing against The Relativity School, a performing arts school in Los Angeles.
“We have to get creative on how to get votes. It might be 9 p.m. here but it’s 6 p.m. there; that’s prime voting time,” Ewing said.
The competition has been an effective way for Outlet to get its name out and around campus, as well as on a national level.
“We used to be known just for Air Jam and other performances we would do around campus, but this really draws us a lot of positive attention,” Ewing said.
Ewing also noted the positive impact the competition has on Ball State as well.
“It’s a national competition, so there has to be people going online and looking up Ball State and seeing what the university is about and that’s great,” she said. “Nothing negative has come out of this.”
For Morgan, the support she’s seen the campus giving to Outlet reminded her it’s important to support others.
“It’s really worth it,” she said. “They need it and it goes a long way. I can’t imagine if nobody had supported us, and it means so much.”
Ewing said she’s had strangers come up to her and ask how Outlet was doing in the competition so far that day.
“I love Ball State, and this has solidified that Ball State is one community,” Ewing said.
One special aspect of the final round is that judges Batoon and Adams will choose a team to work with on its final video.
Although it’s unknown which judge will be Outlet’s coach, Matan suspects it will be Adams, who is originally from Indiana.
“That would just be amazing, to be able to work with Willdabeast,” she said.
The competition is taking a break over Thanksgiving, so the final round of voting will begin Dec. 5 at 1 p.m.
The winning team gets a free trip to Las Vegas, and a chance to work with the Jabbawockeez, winner of “America’s Best Dance Crew.” This would include the dancers, House and Verdon.
“It would be the opportunity of a lifetime to learn from them,” Morgan said. “These are the same guys we watched win the first season of ‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ when some of us were only in middle school. It would be a dream and an honor for sure.”
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