Dance crazy students celebrate Lipdub

By Stephanie James

Loyalist College students broke out into dance Saturday as part of College Lip Dub.

They invaded the halls to participate in the school’s first official lip dub production, a video project of Loyalist television and new media production students.

A lip dub is a music video taped in reverse and edited in post-production so the music plays normally while the visuals play in reverse.

Given the chance to show their creative side, 20 to 30 people showed up to participate and were asked to dress up in crazy colourful costumes and rock out to the song “Get Up and Dance” by Faber Drive. Participants were also given items such as Silly String, streamers and confetti to throw, to add to the colour and chaos of the party scene.

“We were expecting anywhere from 20 to 200 people,” said Sydney Sheppard, the director of the lip dub and a third-year TV and new media student at Loyalist.

Participants had only a few hours on the day of the event to learn dance steps and the main layout of the music video before they were asked to do several run-throughs, and finally, the final filming. Set up, rehearsals and filming took about nine hours to complete.

With Sheppard coaching cast and crew through every take, the hallways were filled with laughter, and students running every which way trying to keep up with the fast-paced filming processes.

For some, participating in the lip dub was an opportunity to have some fun and say they got the chance to participate in something new. For television and new media students, it was one of their course’s requirements.

As the assistant director for the lip dub, Maeghan Etherington was in charge of learning the lyrics to the song backwards and teaching it to the other leads on the day of the event.

“It was a lot more difficult than I anticipated but in the end it was worth it,” said Etherington, who was also a lead singer.

Taping for the music video took place in several locations around the college, including The Shark Tank Pub, Alumni Hall, the TV studio and various hallways decorated by the crew with balloons and colourful items for participants to interact with.

“I have never really directed much, so I guess this is really my directing debut,”
said Sheppard.

Pre-production for the lip dub started in the summer of 2011 and took almost nine months to plan. Students from the TV and new media production program were able to get a feel for what a lip dub was and how it worked by watching high school versions online.

The crew that assisted with both pre-production and helping out on the day of filming consisted of five to 10 people who were in charge of organizing the event, choreographing, decorating and producing in post-production.

“I would absolutely love to have more experience directing, but it’s definitely the teamwork that makes these kind of videos happen,” said Sheppard.