Making a Video to Celebrate 10 Years of Haymarket Rapper

About This Document

This document describes the background to the making of a short video to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Haymarket Rapper.

About Haymarket Rapper

Haymarket Rapper was founded in 2013 by a group of former Newcastle Kingsmen Sword Dancers, following the sad death of one of their members. At the wake held at the Cumberland Arms, Byker (a pub known to many on the rapper sword community) a group who had joined the Kingsmen in the 1970s or early 1980s decided it would be appropriate to set up a new rapper team. 

We made our debut in Birmingham 2014 and our most recent weekend away took us to Chelmsford in November 2024. The story of our trips away over that period is given in the following video.

“Haymarket Rapper – the Full Story”

The video entitled “Haymarket Rapper – the Full Story (with outtakes)” is available on YouTube and is shown below. 

About the Video

The video is a collection of short clips (the number at the start is the timestamp from the start of the video – mins:secs). Note you can jump directly to a section of the video, which launches a new YouTube session:

  • 0:00 Haymarket Rapper – we started dancing rapper in Newcastle
  • 0:58 Year 1 (2014): trip no. 1 to Birmingham (11 Oct 2014)
  • 2:07 Year 2 (2015): trip no. 2 to Derby (24 Jan); no. 3 to York (6 Jun) and no. 4 to Bristol (14 Nov)
  • 3:07 Year 3 (2016): trip no. 5 to Sheffield (9 Apr) and no. 6 Leeds (15 Oct)
  • 4:09 Year 4 (2017): trip no. 7 to Nottingham (28 Jan) no. 8, to Leeds/Skipton (20 May) and no. 9 to Bath (14 Oct)
  • 5:11 Year 5 (2018): trip no. 10 to Manchester (17 Feb) and no.11 to Liverpool (15 Sep)
  • 6:09 Year 6 (2019): trip no. 12 to Derby – 2 (19 Jan), no. 13 to Newcastle (29 Jun) and no.14 to Hull (9 Nov)
  • 7:34 Year 7 (2020): trip no. 15 to Shrewsbury (22 Feb)
  • 8:34 Year 8 (2021): COVID year 1
  • 9:47 Year 9 (2022): COVID year 2
  • 10:44 Year 10 (2023): trip no. 16 to York (28 Jan) and no. 17 to Sheffield (25 Nov)
  • 12:13 Year 11 (2024): trip no. 18 to Chesterfield (17 Feb) and no. 19 to Chelmsford (9 Nov)

In addition to the annual summaries the video also contains some additional clips:

  • 13:23 Facts and Figure
  • 13:57 Outtake 1: Dog Stops Dance
  • 14:37 Outtake 2: Hilarious Rubber Hand
  • 14:56 Outtake 3: The Cover-up!
  • 16:22 Outtake 4: Innovative Camera Work
  • 18:07 Finally A Full Dance!

Summaries

Content of the videos

It was decided to make short clips for each year, each about a minute long. The clips would include details of trips made during the year (typically two or three). This meant that, especially  after the first few years when we took videos of our dances we could only show highlights but this would help provide shared memories for team members.

We also noticed that on a number of occasions the pub we were dancing at live-streamed our dance live or recorded the dance and shared in on Facebook shortly afterwards.

For our most recent trips we handed out cards containing details of our side’s hashtag (#HaymarketRapper) which we gave out to people we noticed with videoing our dance.  We were able to find a number of these videos afterwards, and have incorporated some of these in our videos as shown below.

Figure 1: Using clip shared on Facebook (click for larger view)

Searching for #HaymarketRapper on Google and Facebook we have found the following videos which are still available.

FromDateCommentClip
Found on Facebook
The Boltmakers Arms Keighley20 May 2017Haymarket Rapper doing an impromptu sword dance this afternoon in The Boltmakers Arms Keighley 🎶[Link]
Live at The Falstaff, Derby19 Jan 2019Haymarket Rapper Dancers!
"OK. So I’m officially impressed. That’s some teeny space to dance in."
[Link]
Slip Inn, York28 Jan 2023Surprise visitors to the Slip! #haymarketrapper[Link]
Chris Sexton (live at the Bath Hotel, Sheffield)25 Nov 2023Great to see some rapper in The Bath tonight![Link]
Rutland Arms, Chesterfield17 Feb 2024This afternoon we had a visit from the 'Haymarket Rapper' (all ex-Newcastle Kingsmen), who performed the Kingsmen Dance for us. They were absolutely amazing, you can't beat a bit of sword dancing. Thanks for visiting us folks! 😁⚔[Link]
Chesterfield Great Historic Pub Tour's post17 Feb 2024"I strolled into The Rutland a couple of minutes after this madness"[Link]

The Data

As several dancers have degrees/higher degrees in computing and/or worked in computing we were competent in both using technologies and were aware of the value of collecting data related to our trips away.

Figure 2: Trip to Leeds, 2016

Based on the data recorded on the team’s Google Sheets spreadsheet we know:

  • There have been 15 dancers (with 3 number 1s who called the dancers) and 6 musicians, together with 3 non-dancing members.
  • On average 14 people attend each trip, of which 7 are dancers.
  • We have had 19 trips away.
  • We have visited Derby, York, Leeds and Sheffield on two occasions.
  • We have performed a total of 204 dances, an average of 11 per trip.
  • We have danced at 198 different pubs (and one coffee house!)
  • Our busiest trip was to York in 2015 when we danced 16 times. Our trip to Newcastle (for a Newcastle Kingsmen event) we only danced once.
  • We also had a total of 53 Zoom chats during Covid lockdown (this was not in our original plans!)

In addition to this data for several of our trips we were able to make use of Google Maps which recorded details of our walks from pub to pub, as shown in the screenshot!

Making the Videos

Photographs and videos were mostly taken by team members on their smart phones. The content was subsequently edited using the Davinci Resolve video editing software (free, powerful – but very complex to use!) 

The video editing work included:

  • Trimming and aggregating video clips
  • Cropping videos when necessary
  • Adding video and audio transitions
  • Deciding how to incorporate portrait mode clips in a landscape mode video
  • Adjusting colour balances
  • Adding photographs
  • Adding captions

Initially a series of videos for each year were made and a small number of additional videos (e.g. including some out-takes) were then added. These were uploaded to YouTube and a playlist called “Haymarket Rapper – the first decade” made. 

The collection of videos were then merged into a single video which lasts for 23 minutes. A number of YouTube features (such as adding ‘End cards’ and ‘Info cards’ were added to the YouTube clips (an ‘Info card’, which is displayed for a short period and provides a link to additional videos, is shown).

Suggestions for others

Does your side has a significant anniversary coming up? A Google search for:

#Founded” AND (2015 OR 2005 OR 1995 OR 1985 OR 1975 OR 1965 OR 1955) site:morrisfed.org.uk/teamfinder)

suggests there are about a dozen sides with significant anniversaries during 2025. Or maybe your side has just started and you are making plans to make a video which features your initial meeting, practices and dance-outs.

Some suggestions:

  • Have a variety of video clips, and not just clips of the dances 
  • Try to think of a narrative for your video(s)
  • Sound can cause difficulties in editing. It may be helpful if you record sound from a device located near the musicians.

But perhaps the most important suggestion is about ways in which you can find videos which others take of your side:

  • Announce your side’s hashtag before you start dancing – and at the end of a display.
  • If you are particularly keen on being able to discover videos which people take, make a card which gives relevant information, such as card which Haymarket Rapper have used.  

 

Videoing events

It may be useful to regard the taking of a video clip as a part of the process of making a video suitable for publication – the editing process can be used to assemble the individual components, 

This may be particularly relevant if you are considering making a video of an event such as a day of dance. In such a case you wouldn’t envisage taking a video in a single short – rather you’d make a series of videos. A potential storyline  for a dance event video could be:

  • Event preparation 
  • Introduction to the event (is there an official welcome or announcement?)
  • Dance spots from the sides
  • Audience reactions
  • Final farewells
  • The aftermath

Note the document Making Videos (Suitable for Reuse) provides some additional suggestions.

If you’d like to discuss issues related to making videos the Digital for Dance Teams Facebook group is open to all involved in morris and related traditional dance activities.

Status of this Document

Document published: 1 Feb 2025

Licence for this Document

This document is available with a Creative Commons Sharealike (CC-BY) licence. In brief, this means you can copy and make changes to this document provided you give acknowledgements to the author/publisher. A suggested wording for acknowledgements is:

This document is based on the "Making a Video to Celebrate 10 Years of Haymarket Rapper" document by Brian Kelly, dancer with Haymarket Rapper and Comms and IT volunteer with the Morris Federation.

We welcome feedback on this document. In addition we would like to hear from morris, sword and other traditional dance sides who use IT and would be willing to share their experiences. Would you like to contribute a case study?

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