This is the first debate video I’ve shot with my new wide angle lens for my now ancient, but very handy videocamera. It’s a commercial camcorder, which, as anyone who has watched video on YouTube about making videos will tell you, is a terrible choice. Everyone says to use a DSLR or Mirrorless camera and just record video that way. This camera though is so good and has done such a great job through the years it’s hard to imagine anything beating it. This video looks and sounds great, and could be a demo debate that could be used quite a bit for teaching purposes. Very happy with it.

The Montana workshop is something that I agreed to do not really fully knowing what it would become. I figured at the time I agreed to start going up there and doing a weekend at the start of the year that Montana and the various regional schools that participate would simply fold themselves into the national scene. What we have instead is a very nice regional even that welcomes a lot of folks into debating who might not do it otherwise, or might do it but not really feel sure about it, and the defeats at the first major tournament might encourage them to leave it. 

This debate I thought was quite good as it exhibits a number of different approaches to a motion that could have multiple concurrent opposition positions – one could be against the DREAM Act, against the Wall, both, or against the idea of compromising with Trump or the Democrats (which is far too rare a position to appear in debate-land). In this environment, government teams have very little room to establish what they would like to do and opposition teams have a ton. I think you’ll like the varying approaches you’ll see down the benches. 

We didn’t declare a winner but you could comment and let me know what you thought was best in the debate. It was a good way to start of the season of competitive debate instruction for me. Already looking forward to going again next September to Billings.