There are some achievements in life that you may be exceedingly proud of, you just won’t be putting them on your CV. The creator of Fail Blog has millions of internet followers, but it would look a little incongruous on a job application: ‘2008-2009, Web Designer; 2009-present, I put videos of people falling over on the internet for the world to enjoy.’ It’s not necessarily ‘high-brow’. That does not mean it isn’t fun to do.
Making any sort of video should be an enjoyable experience, especially music videos, especially lip dub music videos. If you don’t know what one of these peculiar things happens to be then maybe you should check out one of my favourites. Basically, a lip dub is a music video filmed in one single shot where the various protagonists within the video mime along to all the words. Usually one person takes one lyric at a time and the camera wanders round a particular area where these people keep appearing.
Choose a well-known song
So the first step in making a lip dub is to choose a well-known song that everyone that will be in your video is going to be familiar with. It’s no good choosing an amazing album track by Kasabian if you’re the only one that’s heard it before.
This brings me to something else. You can’t choose a song without a good number of words in it. It obviously depends on the size of your group, but if there is a one minute guitar solo, you’ll all be dancing around looking awkward when you could be diving in and out of high street shops delivering a lyric each time. This brings me to another thing – this article really shows the inner-workings of my mind. If you choose a slow song you can’t put in as much enthusiasm, so you’ll feel awkward again and that will mean you look daft.
So far we have a fast song with lots of words in. As in the given example I would recommend using a guitar-based song that’s fairly throw-away. You probably won’t want to make too much of a political statement. It’s all just a bit of fun.
Find a location
Now you’ve found your song, choose a location. Wherever you choose remember the following: it is filmed in one continuous shot so you can’t cover a massive area, it could take a while so don’t use somewhere that’s going to get on people’s nerves if you have to keep re-doing it, and places to duck into and hide make better transitions between ‘singers’.
The more epic you go, the better it’ll look. You might want to think about a library, a town centre, a supermarket, or even just your house. If you’ve chosen something like a long, straight path and your participants can’t pop out from behind a bookshelf what’ll look really good is if you have lots of seemingly unrelated people joining in: the dog-walker, the old couple etc.
Find some friends
The people – yeah, you’re going to need some. Depending on your location will depend on how many people you need. The bigger it is, the more people you will need so the same four or five aren’t running up your local high street like loons and then jumping in shot red-faced and out of breath.
Plan it all out
To avoid situations like this you’re going to have to get a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. Write out the lyrics and then divide them up into lines or phrases. Once you have this you can decide whether you want a different person for each lyric or whether you’re going to share it out between a few. You can now work out the path of the camera and where you want people to jump in and do their bit.
Filming & Editing
You’re going to need to communicate this choreography really well or else filming will take an age. It’s better to spend an extra ten minutes going over who does what where than having to keep going back to the beginning, because that’s just it, with a lip dub you can’t do any splicing – it’s just one continuous shot.
Be prepared for a long filming session – you also have to be prepared for a very short editing session: it goes a little like this – put in the footage, add the music, synchronise the two, publish. Lovely stuff.
Youtube
Everyone’s favourite internet video site is going to be the best place to host your video, so wap it on, tell your friends, and bask in the glory of your latest achievement (that won’t be going on your CV).
Hannah Brownlow - If something is there to be written, chances are I've had a go at it. Articles, analysis, blogs, book reviews, scripts, stories - I've ...
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