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Another Steel Magnolia: Claudia Shaw, Videographer...

the delightful Claudia Shaw

If you combine peaches and cream complexion, wide inquiring eyes and honey blonde hair with A quiet resourceful manner, you might find her name is Claudia Shaw. She is also testimony to the increasingly rare examples of the successfully-self taught in her arena of live performance videography.

The VII USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson is her second competition and the first where IBC and Shaw’s Houston-based company, Video Masters, have combined to sell videotapes of the Competition to the public. In 1998 Claudia sold to the competitors only, so they had a record of their performances.

Except that Claudia is a graduate of Jacksonville State Unviersity in Alabama, she could parody the words to you of Carol Channing’s immortal, "I’m jus’ a little girl from Little Rock," for it was at a dance studio in North Little Rock, Arkansas, that Claudia began to tape performances. "When my eldest son Devon was five, he was enrolled in a private kindergarten school called the Cathedral School, close to the Capitol in Little Rock. I was the only parent at the school with a handheld video camera when most of them still required carrying the tape in a separate case.

"I started to tape the school pageants and plays. Parents came to me and said they would love to have a copy, and so I made copies for them, one at a time. The second time this happened, I realized I had a business on my hands. By 1986 I had my business name and cards, Video Masters.

"I was the only person in Little Rock doing it as a business, and I began doing all kinds of events, weddings and social events. My involvement with dance, and other live performances, came through Ms. Karen’s Dance Studio in North Little Rock, which advertises with the comment "Where dancing is fun." My daughter was studying dance there, one or another of tap, jazz, clogging or ballet, one of 600 students then enrolled in classes."

Claudia began studying the intricacies of light compensation soon after she started her business. While she was still in Little Rock she taped two or three international competitions of the American Tae Kwan Do Association. This, in addition to watching her daughter’s classes, provided her with a keen appreciation For movement and style.

"Karen Harrod had me record the routines she scheduled for her recitals. I taped her from back, so a dance student could put the tape on the video recorder and practice the routine with her example in front of them. And then I taped them, so there were two kinds of tape for the same classes the students could use. I did so many of them, probably 100 for each recital, that movement dynamics are second nature; I just know what is going to happen and how to adjust for it.

"Karen asked me to tape her performance and she specified she wanted the whole stage. Parents, of course, want the close up, what I call "TVBroadcast View" tape. When I recorded with just one camera, I had to do it twice, usually taping the full stage production at dress rehearsal, and the TV production at the actual performance. Now I tape with two cameras simultaneously, one for full stage and the other TV. Here at Jackson, they want only the full stage."

Claudia and her husband moved to Houston in 1994 or 1995 when her three children, two boys and a girl, were just ten and on the threshold of their teens. Her daughter started studying dance with Lynnette Mason Gregg and the Clear Lake City Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and Clear Lake Metropolitan Ballet. After a year in Houston, Claudia had an interview with Mrs. Gregg who gave her the chance "to show her what I could do. I have worked with her ever since."

As in Little Rock, Claudia’s business came by word of mouth. "My work is about 50 percent dance and 45 percent other live stage productions, such as choir events, high school productions, theatre performances." The other 5 percent is miscellaneous. "I think I may have done less than ten weddings last year."

"Peggy Girouard and Glenda Brown, who direct Allegro Ballet in Houston, are responsible for my contacting IBC. They encouraged me to contact the Competition, but I delayed telephoning for over a year. Then, in early 1998, something prompted me to call and make my inquiry. I said to myself ‘Well, the worst they can do is say no.’ I called and the artistic administrator said to me, ‘This is the oddest coincidence. I have just gotten off the phone with the company who taped for us four years ago and are not going to come this year.’ So that’s how I got the job.

"It was so lucky. I was going through a divorce and it was a real boost for me." Claudia not only taped it, but spent most of her spare time providing copies to dancers of their performances in the various rounds. At performances, you could see students and competitors clustered around the video monitor watching their variations or one of the more spectacular items danced by some one else. In accordance with regulations, nothing in the contemporary round is copied for dancer’s use.

"This year, the Opening Ceremony performance tapes have been donated to the participating dancers by Ballet Arlington. The other tapes they have to purchase. This also is the first year IBC has permitted the sale of tapes to the public."

With three hundred events to cover, Video Masters has obviously grown into a substantial business. "We have ten cameras and six crews and need to use four vehicles to carry equipment to events. One weekend we clocked in a recording taping record of twenty-two events.

"Video Master fees vary, depending on the nature of the event. If we have the exclusive rights to sell tapes of a performance we do not charge for the master taping. If we are not permitted to sell tapes, whether because of copyright problems or something similar, then I place a fee which will cover the time and expenses of the crew, which would be travel, tape stock and salary."

The VII USA Competition in Jackson has kept Claudia busy. But Claudia managed to assign her son Devon to record the contemporary round so she could drive the necessary six hours to Little Rock to record Karen Harrod’s annual recital for her. In the tradition of Steel Magnolias, Claudia Shaw, a Video Master, doesn’t forget.

This piece is part of Ballet.co's overall Jackson Competition coverage. The competition runs from the 15th to the 30th June 2002 and we plan daily reports to keep you in touch:
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