Back in July of 2008, students at Hochschule Furtwangen University created a video they called “University LipDub #1“. Go watch it – its fun! Created as a single long moving camera shot, the video features numerous students collectively lip synching to a piece of music.
They created a web site, universitylipdub.com to encourage other campuses to create similar videos – they even included some tips on how to make your own. And they encouraged other universities to create their own. (They were not the first with this idea – for example, a group of Microsoft employees made their own lip dub back in December 2007. The founder of Vimeo first suggested the idea and coined the term “lip dub”.)
The idea for these may have originated, in part, from the incredible Russian Ark – the only feature film produced with a single take. Over 2,000 actors and 3 live orchestras – 300 years of Russian history come to life in this spectacular motion pictured filmed in a single day in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia. (I was mesmerized by the spectacle of this amazing movie. This is a six star movie.)
It took until the 2nd half of 2009 for the lip dub phenomena to begin to take off. We are in only the earliest stage of this – these videos are likely to sweep the online world within the next few months.
- Le lipdub HEC – Montreal, Dec 2, 2008
- HEC Montreal Promotional Video – Apr 29, 2009
- Triple ZUT Tourné sur le campus de l’Essec à Cergy, Jun 9, 2009
- PixMania (commercial), Jun 26, 2009
- EMLYON International School of Business – France – July 9, 2009
- l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) – Sep 11, 2009
- Cirque du Soleil Artists Singing Mamy Blue – Oct 6, 2009
- l’Université de Montréal – Nov 13, 2009
- Boston University, Dec 14, 2009
- Shorewood High School – Dec 17, 2009. This amazing lip dub was filmed entirely in reverse with the students lip synching the song played backwards. The final video is then reversed for an amazing effect. Shorewood’s video was in response to a challenge from their rival high school Shorecrest, whose lip dub video is here.