Lip dub

Lip dub made by members of the squat in Altsasu, Navarre, Basque Country to celebrate their 20th anniversary

A lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. There is often some form of mobile audio device used such as an MP3 players. Often, they look like simple music videos, although many involve a lot of preparation and are well produced. The most popular lip dubs are done in a single unedited shot that often travels through different rooms and situations in, say, an office building. They have become popular with the advent of mass participatory video content sites like YouTube.

Origin

Jakob Lodwick, the founder of Vimeo, coined the term "lip dubbing" on December 14, 2006, in a video entitled Lip Dubbing: Endless Dream. In the video's description, he wrote, "I walked around with a song playing in my headphones, and recorded myself singing. When I got home I opened it in iMovie and added an MP3 of the actual song, and synchronized it with my video. Is there a name for this? If not, I suggest 'lip dubbing'."

Lodwick also directed the Flagpole Sitta 'office lip dub' in April, 2007, which The Washington Post covered.

Content

File:UVic Canada pop reference.GIF

Students at UVic (Canada) giving homage to Billy Mays during a lip dub

Tom Johnson, a technical writer who blogs about Web 2.0's effect on communication, describes a good lip dub as having the characteristics, or at least the appearance, of:

• spontaneity: "It appears as if someone thought up the idea on the spot, pulled out their personal video camera, and said hey everyone, let’s all lip sync this Flagpole Sitta song."
• authenticity: The people, production and situation appear real.
• participation: "The video doesn’t consist of one person’s spectacular lip sync, but that of a group, all participating together in this one spontaneous effort, which seems to communicate the attitude and mood of the song."
• fun: the people in the video are having a lot of fun.

Lip dubs may also contain numerous pop culture references. Michael Jackson imitators, fake news correspondents and other 'staged' happenings are a common occurence in lip dubs. Lip dubs with more people tend to focus more on impressive action sequences that remove the spontaneity of the lip dub but impress the viewer with their technical difficulty to film in a streaming, coordinated shot.

Most recognized lip dubs

More than 100,000 Viewers or exceptional notability.

• October 2010 - Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, Israel) - HUJI lip dub, featuring an unofficial production of the Queen song "Somebody to Love" performed by the cast of the hit series Glee. Queen guitarist Brian May, upon seeing this film, wrote on his website : "I ... got quite a lump in the throat. It's very well done, with great heart and joy, and I'm sure Freddie (-Mercury, the late Queen soloist) would love it."

• October 2010 - Vic (Catalonia) - "Lip dub for the independence" of Catalonia and the rest of the Catalan Countries, recorded on October the 24th 2010 in the city of Vic. Achieving a total amount of 5.771 participants, the World Records Academy awarded it the World Record for being the lip dub with the highest participation ever . The initiative was born from a group of Catalans, whose aim is to let the whole world know that Catalonia is a nation, and that without being independent its survival cannot be assured in the future. The chosen song was composed by the valencian band "Obrint Pas" and its title is "La Flama". It has more than 800,000 viewers in a month.

• October 2010 - University of Victoria, Canada - "UVic Lipdub (Canada) Featuring Michael Bublé "Haven't Met You Yet". Shot in one day with just under 1,000 students. Covered on CBC News and extensively from local news outlets, the video reached over a 100,000 views on Youtube in less than a week. The lipdub was made in 'response' to the viral 'UVic' (Universitat de Vic from Catalonia) 'Hey, Soul Sister' lipdub that many, including celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, mistakenly believed came from the Canadian 'UVic'

• October 2010 - Grand Valley State University (United States) -Lip dub Featuring "Come Sail Away" by Styx.

• September 2010 - The Office (Nepotism; Season 7 Premiere) - In the cold open for The (US) Office season premiere, the entire full time cast produced a lip dub for "Nobody But Me" by the Human Beinz.

• June 2010 - Dizengoff Center (Tel Aviv, Israel) - The most popular Israeli lip dub, to the song "If We Ever Meet Again" (Timbaland ft. Katy Perry). Unlike most other lip dubs, it was filmed in a vibrant public mall, so the actors blend in the crowd and emerge from it.

• June 2010 - Universitat de Vic (Catalonia) - This lip dub features over 900 people lipsynching to the song "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train. The video has gone viral.

• June 2010 - Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) (Catalonia) - Catalan lip dub with 1,200 participants, a former world record. Participants included students, teachers and administrative personnel. The chosen song was "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and the last scene included 700 persons dancing at the same time.

• April 2010 - Lipdub at Calvin College (United States) - A lipdub by film production students, featuring the song "So Much Love" by Rocket Summer.

• April 2010 - National Taiwan University (Taiwan) - The first lipdub video in Chinese, for the Art Festival of National Taiwan University.

• November 2009 - First US University LipDub - Two United States universities were put to the task of conducting its own lip dub, convinced that each one would be the first to have a video of its kind in the country. In the end the Texas State lip dub won over by Suffolk University, just three days apart.

• September 2009 - University of Quebec at Montreal (Quebec, Canada) - Is one of the most famous lipdubs ever made, featuring the song "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. Directed by Luc-Olivier Cloutier and Marie-Eve Hebert. So far it has the highest volume of views, with over 7,000,000 on YouTube. and was also shown on CNN. Also, its behind the scenes is the most watched of the universities that have uploaded them, with more than 230 000 copies.

• May 2009 - EMLYON lip dub (France) - This is the first successful lip dub to use two songs in one video by the EMLYON Business School in France. An extract of the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" by Buggles, is put on the song "Pop the Music" of Triim, which extends throughout the video.

• December 2008 - LolliDub (France) - The production team of the LolliDub from HEC Business School in Jouy-en-Josas, near Paris was the first to use some interesting tools for editing, with an impeccable result. The LolliDub was recorded with the song "Lollipop" Mika, hence its name.

• June 2008 - Furtwangen University, Germany - The first University lip dub . Lip dub reflected university life as it happens on a normal day of classes. This video created afterwards the UniversityLipdub.com project.

External Links

• Lipdub Tube
• Lip Dub Hub - comprehensive list of lip dubs
• Lipdub Blog
• Lip Dubs From All Over The World