JMU student documents 22 hour trip to N.C. with the Marching Royal Dukes, and it is awesome

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Stuart representing the Marching Royal Dukes with his friends at a football game

The Marching Royal Dukes had to give up their halloween weekend this past Saturday to travel to Cary, North Carolina where they performed at Cary Band Day, in exhibition. Junior Media Arts and Design student, Stuart Brazil, endured the 22-hour trip -- and decided to film the entire thing.

Brazil stands atop a mountain

Not only did Brazil partake in the performance aspect of the trip, but he utilized the skills he is learning at JMU -- in real life. Brazil's major, "revolves a lot around content-creation and sharing ideas with people through different platforms." He went on to comment that he could not think of a better way to share the exciting, and long, experience with the world than through YouTube. "This was my first attempt at a video blog and I just wanted to keep it informal, but make sure it was interesting."

Brazil is a trombone drill instructor in the Marching Royal Dukes, and is focusing on Converged Media at James Madison University.  "I decided to document the trip because I think a lot of people don't really know what it's like to be in the band, other than seeing us as football games," Brazil mentioned. Often times, the hard work off the field isn't seen by the public eye. "I saw the opportunity to share what a day in the life of an MRD was like, and I took it."

But it wasn't all fun and games like his blog-style documentary might suggest.

Brazil explained that performing for the high school students at the competition was a "fantastic experience," mostly because a majority of the North Carolinians in attendance had never heard of JMU before. Nonetheless, the crowd was brought to their feet at the end of each of the 2 performances. "It's hard to accommodate a band of our size, and for that we're very appreciative too," he mentioned.

Brazil claimed it was "definately worth it." He goes on to jokingly remark, "Plus, halloween isn't really confined to one night, at JMU..."

After graduating, Brazil hopes to share his ideas with other people through communications, advertising, filmmaking, or web development -- presumably with his contagious sense of humor.

By Chase Maszle ('17), JMU Athletic Bands
Published November 6, 2015

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Published: Friday, November 6, 2015

Last Updated: Friday, November 3, 2017

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