A correction was made to this story on 1/24/2024

In the story, it was stated “The Lip Dub Club also plans on having a Lip Dub premiere in Meyer Hall this year, with a documentary added on which will explain the process of how they recorded it.” However, this has changed. The Lip Dub Club no longer plans to have a premiere this year.

The information in the story has been fixed/updated. 

The camera pans down to the entrance of Building 2. “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen cues. A student dressed in a tuxedo mouths the words of Freddie Mercury, leading the cameraman into the foyer with two dancers performing a pirouette. This scene marks the beginning of the 2019 Dreyfoos Lip Dub, starting a tradition that has continued to the current day.

2023, however, has brought change to the yearly event. At Club Rush, a new concept for the annual Lip Dub was announced with the Lip Dub Club, promising to split filming throughout the year and to change its format from a one-take shot to a multitude of spliced shots.

The beginnings of the Lip Dub came in 2019 when Dreyfoos alumnus Adam Goldstick was a sophomore. He says he had the idea for a Lip Dub simultaneously with the Student Government Association (SGA). Goldstick was the videographer for the one-take videos as students sang along to the music while he “toured” the school. 

He continued this role for the first two Lip Dubs, until he became SGA Historian his Junior year.

“We started them with the intent for them to become a tradition,” Goldstick said. “Like a visual yearbook for us to be able to look back and see who was in our class and see the energy of the school.” 

Goldstick and his SGA co-historian Allison Robbert collaborated on the 2020 video, which is the shortest at just eight minutes but showcased many ideas, including a classroom set on stage for the beginning of the Lip Dub.

“We kind of had to play a lot, which is how we got the first scene where we make it look like a pretend classroom,” Robbert said. “Then we put all the walls and the desks away, and that’s actually a dance number. That was kind of the craziness that we needed to save for the second year.”

This second year of the project went viral, racking up more than 600,000 views on YouTube and engagement on other platforms. 

“Even after Adam graduated, we didn’t talk to each other as much because we went our separate ways, (but) we would still text whenever (the video) hit a new milestone,” Robbert said.

Alongside the growth of the Lip Dub, the parallel tradition of Seminole Ridge High School’s annual Lip Dub continued, which predates Dreyfoos’. The unofficial rivalry between the schools has reached audiences on Twitter and local radio, where listeners have been encouraged to vote for their favorite of the two.

“It was kind of exciting amongst ourselves to have a little sense of competition,” Goldstick said of the so-called feud. “You know, setting the bar high as you’re working to create it.”

More development on the Seminole Ridge rivalry will come in future versions of this article.

The Lip Dub, like many school operations, was derailed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the event being skipped in 2021. The following year, communications junior Lexi Critchett and communications senior Caroline Murray took on the project.

“Going into it my junior year, I don’t think I realized just how much it entailed,” Critchett said. “It’s a big undertaking, involving assigning teachers as supervisors, breaking down the songs, and making sure that you have the exact timestamps of where you’re going to stop and start each song. You have the lyrics, and you have the choreography planned out with each of the singers that’s doing it. There’s just a lot that goes into it.”

Critchett continued to film and organize the Lip Dub during her senior year, leading up to the most recent Lip Dub in March 2023. Through Critchett’s years as director, the Lip Dub continued to be filmed in one take during a “Lip Dub” allocated morning of Spirit Week, leading to long filming days with multiple attempts at creating the video.

“You need to be adaptable and just kind of be able to go with the flow and figure things out as they come up,” Critchett said. “Because you can never really predict what’s going to go wrong.”

Critchett’s final year organizing the Lip Dub has led up to the current era. The event is once again run by an SGA historian; this year, the reins have been taken by digital media junior Eszter Veres.

While Veres has the ultimate task of completing the Lip Dub this year, this is the first time that there will be multiple shots filmed throughout the year, as opposed to one day during Spirit Week. As a co-creative director of the Lip Dub Club, specifically heading the videography category, the task of recording the Lip Dub falls into her hands.

“We definitely want to include the community more this year and make sure everyone’s input was being heard and communicated,” Veres said. “Making sure (the Lip Dub) is more organized and just making sure that we have fun.”

Some students prefer this new change.

“It’s a good thing because some years it feels like (the Lip Dub) is rushed,” vocal senior Emily McLaughlin said. “But I feel like (filming) throughout the year (will be) better, and it might help with preparation.”

Digital media junior Ella Front is the other co-director, but she focuses more on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the video: planning the Lip Dub, helping to curate the soundtrack, and editing it.

Some students, such as communications freshman Lian Dussie, are in favor of filming the Lip Dub through multiple separate clips, thinking that it “shows different events that we have,” but others are worried this might disrupt tradition.

“Idealistically, it’s a great idea to break it up into parts,” communications senior and assistant director for last year’s Lip Dub, Harrison Mandell, said. “But you also lose the core value of the Lip Dub which is the one-shot school spirit. But I think if the (Lip Dub Club) did it tastefully and in a way that looked cohesive, then it would have been just the same.”

But to some, trying to film and produce the Lip Dub just with a barrage of different clips taken throughout the year may be quite difficult.

“I think the idea is really good,” Mandell said. “But I’ve been talking with them a little bit, and it sounds like a lot of the stuff that they have been getting hasn’t been so usable and so great. It sounds like it’s gonna end up being a similar one-shot on the day of.”

So far this year, the Lip Dub Club has filmed segments of Club Rush, Dreyfoos’ Eras Tour Fun Friday, Fall Dance, and the “Mamma Mia!” production.

With the Lip Dub Club initiated this year, it has allowed more students to be involved with videography, editing, and overall planning such as picking out the music that will be sung. However, some have wondered how including the input of so many people on campus may affect the production.

“I think the Lip Dub is such a big responsibility that I’m happy that there’s more of a collaborative effort, and it’s not falling on one person,” Mandell said. “At the same time, trying to take so many different people’s ideas and opinions into creating one project and one video will end up being a little bit conflicting. But I’m really excited to see what they come up with.”

While more kids are allowed to help behind the scenes, it also allows club members to have a better chance to be featured in the Lip Dub.

“The people that are in (Lip Dub Club) have an advantage for being selected down the road to be featured because we have that connection already, and it’s easier,” Front said. “But features are not limited just to the club; we really want to showcase the entire student body.”

If you are interested in joining the club, follow @lipdubclub on Instagram, where you can find the Google Classroom code and meeting dates. On the Google Classroom, you can find places to voice your opinion on song selections for the Lip Dub.

This is a developing story.