What is Red Bull Bracket Reel?

Updated: Dec 20, 2019

Welcome friends! 🤙

So maybe you've heard the name... "Red Bull". Chances are you have. Chances are you've probably heard about their annual events that are really popular. Events like:

The list goes on... and on... and on. There is definitely no shortage of Red Bull events. So when Red Bull invited FWD to compete in the 2nd year of their National Bracket Reel Dance Competition... we were excited and wasted no time getting our squad together.

TL;DR

Red Bull Bracket Reel is a film competition pinning the Top 16 collegiate dance teams against each other in a head-to-head dance video challenge. Teams are given one week to choreograph, edit, and upload. Winner gets cool stuff and bragging rights.

How Many Teams Compete Each Year?

Red Bull Bracket Reel begins with a bracket of the Top 16 Teams. Every year Red Bull reps from around the country scout through colleges and universities to find local teams that want to compete. Teams looking to compete must create an audition video to be considered in the running for Bracket Reel. The deadline is the week before the competition starts and 3 Judges from the dance industry along with a Red Bull staff, are responsible for narrowing the competition down to the Top 16. Once the bracket is set, this is where the fun begins...

What do you win? Where's the free stuff?

The winner of the Bracket Reel Competition, receives a trip to LA to shoot a dance video with Red Bull. These videos would then be used on their various media platforms worldwide and gain the winners working experience with an industry choreographer. Awesome!

This year we were lucky enough to get a dope prize package just for making the Top 16! Check it out:

So you make a dance video every week?

Yes. Simply put yes, but these videos shouldn't be simple, not if you want to progress to the next week. You see every team is given the exact same song each week for their edit. This means all 16 videos from the Top 16 universities will have the same song... you need to stand out if you want to make it far. The judges appreciate originality, execution, direction, quality editing, and so on. The fans? Well they usually appreciate free stuff lol 😅 Checkout one of our videos from Bracket Reel 2017:

Who are the Judges?

Every year 3 Judges are hand selected by Red Bull. Red Bull aims to select top industry leaders that are knowledgable and have experience creating dance videos at a scalable level. Previous Judges include dancers, choreographers, and videographer such as:

Each round the judges can score up to 90 points altogether (30 max per judge). Each judge scores on their "specialty" which allows the judges to have separate, yet complimentary, opinions. Checkout our score cards from the 2017 Finals:

How do Fan Votes work?

Teams are allowed to campaign for votes which can add a max of 10 points to the total score. Every 500 votes is 1 point. When we factor in the judges points (90 max) and add the fan points (10 max) we get a perfect score of 100. Here is an example from our 2017 Final: