Crusaders Ready 'Secret' Song for Macomb County Lip Dub Challenge

students and staff are filming a lib dub video this week, but that's the only detail they're telling.

Assuming the mystery of a special ops mission, the Crusaders are keeping the finer points of their video top secret until it is shot, packaged and submitted to the judges of the 2011 Lip Dub Challenge.

The challenge, offered by New Haven High School’s video club, dares Macomb County’s public high school to put their creativity and school pride where it counts and produce the best lip dub video in the county.

In Macomb Township, more than 300 L’Anse Creuse North students and staff are rising to that challenge.

“I knew that it would be a ton of work, which it has been, but this is exactly why I became a teacher,” said Brian Manninen, LCN technology education instructor. “I’m more than thrilled to be a part of this. It is a great idea and it will be an annual thing, hopefully.”

For those unfamiliar with the international craze, a lip dub is a lip-sync music video shot in one take, with no cuts and no editing.

Participants in the video must lip sync the words of the song used on the sound track and the video must be shot in one continuous take along a planned path, in this case, the high school campus.

“It’s really difficult working with so many people,” said LCN senior and cameraman Andrew Kushel. “The fact that it is one shot, with 300 to 400 kids in the video at one time, it’s crucial we practice every little thing so we don’t mess up one shot. The major hurtle is making sure everyone knows what they’re doing.”

After selecting the video’s song, which is perhaps the best-kept secret of all, the video’s planning staff set about choreographing every second of the song to every second of movement through the school.  

“We played the song on our iPhones and mapped out where we are in the school, walking at a normal pace in the school,” Manninen said. “We drew up a map and now we are sending that out to staff with what we are going to be doing at these spots. Walking around definitely opened our eyes to what we could do and couldn’t do on that key day.”

However, those involved in planning the production itself agree, the hardest part was not organizing the details, but rather drumming up excitement within the student body.

“The biggest issue to overcome is getting people excited,” said LCN sophomore Bronwyn Moisan.

“We have 300 students and I thought we’d have more,” Manninen said. “We’re trying to get the students excited, and get the vision of 20 students to more. The hardest part is really having the student body wrap their arms around it and say, ‘We’re totally on board.’”

Once the video is shot, and the soundtrack added, the video will be submitted to the Macomb County Library Association for judging.

The top five videos will receive trophies, with the top two having the added bonus of $300 and $200 college scholarships.

The winners will be announced Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. during the Lip Dub Film Festival held at the John Armstrong Performing Arts Center. Admission is $2.

For more information on the Lip Dub Challenge, visit New Haven Community Schools' website.