Close to 200 students at UQAM are enjoying a bit of Internet fame right now. A video they made in September is generating tens of thousands of views online.
EXPLAINER SINGS ALONG WITH THE UQAM LIPDUB VIDEO.
1 As of this writing, the UQAM lipdub of I Gotta Feeling, a song by the Black Eyed Peas, has generated close to 80,000 views on YouTube. Not bad for a bit of lip syncing. The "lipdub" is a video that shows multiple people singing along to a popular song. (The actual song is overlayed during editing.) One of the more popular lipdubs was made two years ago by employees of Connected Ventures, the company that operates CollegeHumor.com and other websites. You can watch it here: www.vimeo.com/173714. In August, third-year communications students Luc-Olivier Cloutier and Marie-Eve Hebert got together to plan out their own lipdub. "During the month-and-a-half before we filmed, we wrote out everything line by line so we knew who was doing what and where, and what props or costumes we needed," says Cloutier, who ran the camera during filming. "But we didn’t know how many people would be there to film it. Once we counted everybody and saw that there were 172, it was okay because our objective was to have 170 people."
2 The 172 participants gathered at UQAM on Sept. 10 to receive their assignment for the video. None knew what they were going to be asked to do, and that was part of the idea. (Cloutier says they needed at least 100 people or the video wasn’t going to happen.) For example, when the song mentions "mazel tov," a group of students seated at a table raise up their glasses. Other parts have students singing and riding a Bixi bike, or doing cartwheels down a hallway. It’s one of the more elaborate lipdubs out there, which is one reason why Cloutier and Hebert have been doing lots of interviews lately. "We just did it for fun," he says, "so the reaction is a little bit crazy." Amazingly, the video only took two takes to film. "There are some mistakes, but we said it’s okay because there was a good vibe and everybody is smiling, so we decided to keep it," he says. So are they planning a follow-up video? "No, it’s something you can only do once," he says. Watch the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zcOFN_VBVo.
