Not to dog UBC or anything, but I really thought their technical efforts on this were very scattered. You had things that worked out great, and then things that totally brought the video down.
The quality of the filming itself is excellent. The fact that they actually have a few cuts/transitions in there sort of ruins the entire feel for someone like myself, who also edits video. The point of a lip dub, at least, from my understanding, is
one continuous cut. No clever editing gimmicks to mask anything.
The fact that they have an aerial shot is astounding too.
However, just having people show up and attempt to sing the lyrics (a lot of people are off-cue) in sheer numbers really isn't that impressive. That might've been fun for the people involved, but again, in my crotchety-video-editing opinion, it's not impressive.
This example, done by a university in Montreal (UQAM), is much better, in my opinion. The lip synching is consistent. The costumes match the lyrics in parts. The people are very enthusiastic. There are no cuts or transition tricks. And the song is great for something like this.
As a member of MacTV, I personally don't want to take this on unless we're going to be doing it properly. However, I'd refrain from taking my word as the official MacTV word on the issue, since my opinion is my own, and not representative of MacTV as a whole.
I just feel that this is something that will take at least a month of planning and choreographing. It also will take a few months to line up corporate sponsors. It will take probably a week to edit, especially if there are multiple cameras/angles involved.
Also, you need to consider the logistics of the participants. This is something that would be better done at the end of the school year or a semester. Why? Because you can allocate who's doing what, you can
practise, and you can include
everyone. New students have to move in, they have several hours worth of activities to attend on any given day of WW. So, unless you relegate them to a non-singing/forefront/fun role in this (since they just get onto campus during WW, and they've not been here long enough to practise) it will be very difficult to incorporate them into anything other than a simple role. (Like running into taped off markers on the football field that spell out "MAC," or something -- so that an aerial shot can be taken from above.)
If this is done hastily, only established students will be here to practise. Hell, they might not even be here in the summer since they live elsewhere during that time. They might have summer jobs, vacations, and so on.
The other thing you need to realise is that (even if you use editing tricks like well-hidden cuts) filming something like this could take hours, possibly the entire day. I'm not joking. What you don't see in any video is how many times somebody screws up.
TL;DR:
I know I've been very negative about the thing, but it's a very large undertaking that can't be simply thrown together in a few days and then filmed in an hour. The amount of effort put into something like this is a massive undertaking. It can start on FB and run on goodwill, but after a while, you need some serious people to take the reins in order for it to turn out to be a success.
If there are people willing to sacrifice the effort involved, and to make it look great, I'm more than willing to sign onto the project.
