University students from all disciplines collaborated in a school-wide effort this semester to produce a one-shot music video during which participants lip sync the words to a popular song. This project, called LipDub, hoped to unite students through a fun yet challenging arts initiative. The video, which was filmed April 11, was an uncut production of Michael Franti’s “Say Hey (I Love You).”

The effort was headed by second-year College student Mark Goldberg and second-year Commerce student Alana Heifetz. The two main coordinators planned the budget, organized and conducted meetings. Goldberg served as director during filmmaking and recruited a videographer friend to supply equipment.

Goldberg first came up with the idea for LipDub during Winter Break. His friend from home, a student at James Madison University, showed him videos of LipDub productions from an array of schools — high schools and colleges alike — that have undertaken similar productions.

“We thought it was a great idea to do at U.Va.,” Heifetz said. “Mark and I started brainstorming … We really wanted to feature the Amphitheater, the Lawn and Rotunda in the video, so we determined a route that would include all of them.”
The next step was choosing the song, which Goldberg said needed to be a “fairly popular” song that was fairly wordy, allowing more students to participate. A repetitive chorus was key because it would give people a chance to catch up with the words in case they fell behind during the verses. With all of these considerations in mind, Michael Franti’s “Say Hey (I Love You),” which Franti performed as the opening act for John Mayer at John Paul Jones Arena in March, was a fitting decision.

“Everyone unanimously agreed,” Heifetz said.

LipDub required extensive behind-the-scenes planning by its organizers, resulting in nine separate committees to plan various parts of the production. During meetings, a director from each committee came to represent each group’s respective concerns. In this way, the enormous effort was broken down and coordinated by a centralized group.

The main organizers of LipDub held a preliminary planning meeting March 16. Then they invited anyone from the larger University community to participate, using Facebook to spread the word. From about 40 people present at the preliminary meeting, the group expanded quickly to 150 people committed to the event, most of whom requested a minor part in the video. To accommodate the rapid increase in the number of participants, a second planning meeting was held April 8 for those who were not present at the initial meeting. Heifetz said about 100 students turned out for the filming April 11.

Fourth-year College student Sarah Schneider heard about the event from Heifetz and “was interested because it sounded … fun and unusual … not to mention the fact that I would be on YouTube.”

Schneider was one of the many students to RSVP through Facebook. She took part in a scene near the beginning of the film, explaining, “it was fun to film what would be the final cut.”

As fun as it was, though, she added that the most difficult aspect of participating was keeping up with the music.

This particular trouble may never be resolved adequately for students. That is not to say, however, that other aspects of the event could not be improved, participants said.

“Some people ended up being left out without the lines at the end of the song,” Schneider said.

Third-year College student Rodannie Zapata expressed similar sentiments. She added optimistically, though, that there is only room for improvement.

“Because this was the first [event] of its kind at U.Va., I assume it would only improve from this point forward,” she said.

Goldberg emphasized that the project was intended to to bring people together for a fun, new activity never done before on Grounds.

People in college say they want to be a part of “something special,” Goldberg said, adding LipDub is a way to make that happen and “create a lasting product.”

He noted, however, that he does not take the project more seriously than he should or try to promote some sort of message with it. It is simply an opportunity for people to seek their “3 minutes, 48 seconds of fame.”

And with the project set to release on YouTube any day now, be sure to keep an eye out for your former roommate or classmate in the music video. It is, after all, their 3 minutes, 48 seconds of fame.