On December 21st, Wayland High School will shoot its first ever lip dub. The filming was originally going to take place on Spirit Day, but the date was postponed due to rain.

“I think it will be just as fun on the 21st,” said Library Director Erin Dalbec, who is co-coordinating the event with Technology Specialist Mary Barber. “That is the last day of school before winter vacation and the last day in the old school so I think it will be a little more meaningful.”

The plan for the lip dub has been in the works for six months, since Dalbec and Barber saw that many other high schools had created lip dubs and even submitted them to national contests.

“We thought that because the school was closing, it would be a good way to show the halls and old buildings,” said Barber.

“It will also build unity and spirit amongst the classes, sort of bring the whole school together,” said Dalbec.

The idea was then brought to the attention of Jim Mulane, executive director of WayCam, and it was decided that the Script-to-Screen class would film the lip dub. Junior Jacob Sussman will put together a behind the scenes video to accompany the lip dub and senior Alex Dulude will be the main videographer with the help of junior Jason Goodman.

“I think logistically that the lip dub should come together well. I’m really excited to film it. It has been a great experience up until this point and I’m sure it will be even better when the real shoot happens,” said Dulude.

Also involved are seniors Elisa Bushee and Ariel Cormier, Window Dance Ensemble co-directors, who selected the songs for the video and will be choreographing the lip dub.

“I think the idea of a lip-dub is really cool. It’s a great way to say goodbye to the school,” said Cormier.

“It’s kind of bittersweet seeing that we will only be on this campus for a few more weeks, and that we will be filming on the last day that we are all together on the current campus,” said Bushee. “I hope everyone gets excited about the lip dub because it will be so cool once we film it.”

Bushee and Cormier came up with the idea to use songs from each decade that the school has existed. Each song will be played in a different building.

Library/Administration building – “Think” by Aretha Franklin
Commons – “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond
Fine Arts Building – “I Want You Back”  by the Jackson 5
Language Building – “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey
History Building – “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice
Science Building – “Bye, Bye, Bye” by ‘N Sync
ME Building – “Lose Control” by Missy Elliot and Ciara
Path towards New School – “Edge of Glory” by Lady Gaga

The lip dub route will wind around the school in an effort to show off the old campus. The video will start in the Media Center, go through the guidance office and out the administration building. From there, it will continue through the Commons, the fine arts building and the language, history, science and ME buildings, in that order. Finally, the underclassmen will form two lines for the seniors to walk through, starting at the ME building and ending at the bus pickup area. The seniors will walk through the pathway and the lip-dub video will end in a fade-out showing the seniors leading the way to the new school.

The lip dub itself is only ten minutes and 21 seconds long. According to Barber, on the day of filming the lip-dub will be shot twice back-to-back, to get kids pumped up in the first run-through so everyone will know what to do the second time around. The whole filming session should take no more than 30 minutes.

Since the shooting of the lip dub was moved from November 23rd to December 21st, there is now more time to plan.

“The way it’s planned is that every single homeroom will be united. They can plan to do something as camera swings by,” said Barber. “Each building will be lined with kids, so there will be a stream of kids throughout the whole video.”

“I’d love it if students who are either lip syncing or just being in the background could come up with dance moves or something to make the video more interesting,” said Dalbec.