Discord

You are not required to apply with a Discord handle. However, if you accept a position within the team, you will be required to participate in the Discord server for planning. If you're new to Discord, you may ask an official member to relay important updates and pass on your relevant messages to the team until you get the hang of it.

The team holds both remote and in-person practices.

The purpose of the remote practices are to tackle all sync issues prior to the in-person rehearsals. This is the time for tweaking choreography, drilling tough sections, and committing to muscle memory.

In-person rehearsals should be focused more on memorizing formation awareness and optimizing camera compatibility. There should minimal, if any, significant choreography changes.

Remote Practices

1. Leading up to a meetup, all members send independently filmed practice videos to the team by a specified deadline (typically in 1 month timeframe).

2. EllieS, Lyra, or another member will splitscreen all our videos and post a practice "mashup" (both mirrored and non-mirrored versions).

3. EllieS, Flo, CM, Lyra, or another member will then make a dance sync notes list. If a lot of corrections are needed, we practice those corrections to submit in the next practice video.

Each video check-in is called a "phase". The first practice video is Phase 1, second submitted is Phase 2, and so on. We try to have 3 phase videos for each dance before a meetup. Think of these like full team rehearsals.

Dancers can practice as much as they want on their own. Some practice daily or weekly. Some submit several takes of Phase videos on different days before the deadline. Some only practice that one time in the month when they need to film the video. It's encouraged to practice more if your schedule allows it!

Phase videos can be uploaded to YouTube or Google Drive. If you have time to overlay the audio, it drastically helps the mashup editor due to the large amount of videos needing to be synced in a short period of time. However, we prioritize what's in your capability and if you can't, it's not a big deal! Just try to make your music audible in your video.

In-Person Rehearsals

Ideally, the team should be fully synchronized with all choreography embedded in muscle memory by the time of an in-person rehearsal.

During the first 1-2 days of a meetup (and any pre-meetup days available), the team does in person rehearsals. At minimum, these last 2-3 hours. In person rehearsals can go on for long times depending on how much formation and camera practice is needed. If rehearsals are to go on for an extended period of time, breaks will be scheduled every 2-3 hours.

During a full out rehearsal, the first hour is spent on warm ups and stretches. The leader will indicate when dancers should go full out or just mark the dance (practice movements without full speed/power).

During a marked rehearsal, the first 15 minutes are spend on warm ups and stretches. It should be assumed everyone is just marking it. However, dancers are free to go full out if they'd like.

Running/participating in a group takes a lot of work!

GENERAL ROLES

For the most part, you will take on a specific role within the team. For example, here are the current members' unique roles (discluding roles filled by multiple members):

CM - costume designer, marketing manager

KAI - art director, graphic designer, brand manager

EllieS - project assistant

Dandy - financer

Lightning - merchandise designer, promotions designer

Lyra - music mixer

Azzy - social media & website assistant

Flo - digital artist

Each member is in charge of their designated role within the team, whether or not they are actively participating in a project. You'll be allowed to work on your own time on things that fall under your role. You'll be given some general direction from the leader or other members for important things. You'll also be respected as the expert in that category and are trusted to create anything that helps you or the team. In essence, you will not be micromanaged and can schedule things accordingly with your personal life.

Sometimes, a member needs time off and does not fill their role during that period. For example, Dandy is taking time off until mid 2024 to focus on university studies. CM has taken over financial tasks, and KAI has taken over historian tasks.

A list of member roles can be found here: https://codexmiao.wixsite.com/code/team-secrets/member-roles

MEETUP PREPARATION

Planning for a meetup takes a considerable amount of tasks on top of your specific role. We try to designate things you're best at or more comfortable doing. When there is no one on the team who knows how to do something or the assigned member is overwhelmed, members may have to learn new skills to cover the preparations that need to get done.

Examples of special tasks needed in preparation for a meetup include, but are not limited to:

• Compiling film site options

• Booking affordable lodging accommodations (when applicable)

• Creating dance practice sync notes for members to work on

• Preparing makeup looks and practicing speedy application for members

• Completing other assigned side tasks

If you are committing to attend a meetup, we would like you to be active in the planning preparation in some capacity -- unless you absolutely cannot contribute more than your presence at the meetup. We do still value having dancers attend to dance after all!

IN-PERSON ROLES (AT MEETUPS)

In order to optimize our in-person meetups, we assign specific roles for members to manage such as:

• Shuttling members (driving)

• Preparing breakfast and coffee/tea

• Packing and distributing lunches, snacks, and water

• Cooking dinner

• Meal clean up

• Packing camera & equipment

• Setting up film sites

• Doing members' makeup and/or hair

• Handling safety pins, bobby pins, glue, and other last minute utilities

• Monitoring communication channels (group chats/calls, event staff messages, etc.)

Members who handle less general roles and/or contributed less in meetup preparation tasks will be given more in-person roles.

YEAR ROUND

CODE:MiAO is only a hobby! Personal life and health should come first. There isn't particularly a requirement to be active year round. We understand that life events and burnout happen. You will be free to take time off when needed for however long you need.

We try to schedule general resting periods, often for an entire month 1-3 times a year. Sometimes we will take turns having resting periods.

It is valid to set those boundaries at any time while on the team. You can always ask to be assigned another role to contribute towards instead. We want you to feel like your participation is comfortable and doable.

Regarding your audition form, you may note this in the comment boxes, or simply withhold filling out that question.

Learning Dances

Typically we dedicate 1 month to learning choreography. Then we spend the next 1-2 months cleaning and improving our synchronization.

During extreme time constraints, we may assign 1 dance per week, so long as members express that it is doable for them.

The team does its best to accommodate for occasional late learning and members dropping from dances.

The most important thing is that all members are able to learn the same choreography lineup by the meetup deadline. This might mean cutting dances to ease the dance load, redistributing dancers, doing shorter versions of the song, or other accommodations.

Completing Tasks

Deadlines for completing tasks depend on how urgent they are.

Urgent: 0-3 days (sometimes)

Soon: 1-2 weeks (often)

Normal: 3-4 weeks (often)

Nonurgent: 1-6 months (often)

Unprioritized: 6-12 months (sometimes)

No. We do not earn any profits from our content, operations, or otherwise.

We may run fundraising to help fund costumes and projects! Our current policy is not to have staff members participate in any monetized staff positions so as to not take advantage of our volunteers - monetized team roles are reserved for members!

Our full team rules are detailed in our Team Etiquette page.