Epic LipDub Video Premieres Tonight

Updated: Check out the completed LipDub video here.

Getting 300 students together anywhere on a rainy Friday morning at 9 a.m. is pretty epic, never mind having them dance, lip-sync, wear costumes and even jump in the pool. But on Friday, March 9, all of this was done in the name of “The Most Epic LipDub Ever”.

Organized by 48 students in Professor Jo O’Connor’s Event Planning and Management and Media Relations classes, the newest LipDub also promises an appearance by Dean Elmore and initially included plans to have Rhett jump out of a Black Hawk helicopter onto Nickerson field (that is until Massachusetts was inundated by rainstorms and all helicopters were deployed for flood relief).

Known for giving her students big projects, like planning a basketball game in the fall semester, O’Connor assigned her class the task of organizing and planning a LipDub, a one-shot, no cuts video of hundreds of people lip-syncing and dancing to a song, with the song dubbed to match their mouths.

The final product is being debuted tonight at a release party at 973 Commonwealth (aka T’s Pub) at 8 p.m.  The video also includes pool-jumping, Lady Gaga-impersonating and non-stop dancing, all while lip-syncing to “Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murhpys and a mash-up of “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha and “Just Dance” by Lady GaGa. The cameras followed the students through West Campus while trying to stay indoors as much as possible, and culminates in the Fitness and Recreation Center.

When volunteers arrived early morning on Friday, most had no idea what to expect and were given an assignment and location for the video, co-director Jaime Argyriadis said. Many students came to represent student groups; some were friends of class members and others just wanted to be involved. There was also a casting call, Argyriadis said, for people who wanted larger roles or who had special skills.

The LipDub phenomenon first touched down at BU last semester, when student Georgia Poivre organized a LipDub to the Jackson 5’s “ABC”, which has received almost 160,000 views on YouTube. The initiative was to bring together students from all over campus and create a sense of community on campus, she said in a previous Quad article.

The new LipDub has a lot to live up to, but students were certainly ready to work for it. O’Connor said she divided it into two parts: event planning and then media and marketing, which was coordinated by her Media Relations class.

Her 25 person Events Planning class was split into 11 groups, ranging from music to choreography to recruitment and post-party, as well as two co-directors: Alex Shuck and Jaime Argyriadis.

“It’s like a lasagna casserole,” said O’Connor. “There are so many layers and they don’t all taste the same.

Lauren Grunstein, who one of three choreographers, said she had never choreographed anything before. Their tasks included figuring out the route and where to place people, from beginning to end.

However, they had to re-choreograph the majority of the video for the indoors when they realized on Tuesday of that week that it was going to rain on Friday morning.

“At the beginning, we kind of freaked out,” Grunstein said. “But then we worked Wednesday night and all day Thursday.”

The Media Relations students stepped in closer to the shoot, creating a buzz about the LipDub and making #BULipDub the number one trending topic in Boston on that Friday.

Finally, after two rehearsals and four run-throughs, students could breathe a little easier. Their work was not completely done yet, however; they had to vote on the best take, edit the video, give countless thank yous to the administration, workers and other students, and of course, admire their work.

“For us, it is about carrying LipDub on, and keeping the trend going and keeping BU in the LipDub game,” said Argyriadis.