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This is the first ever MAET lipdub! Students in the Michigan State University Master of Arts in Educational Technology program in Rouen, France collaborated to put together this masterpiece in two short weeks. The music choice (Daft Punk) is quite apropos, not only because of the lyrics, but also because Daft Punk originates from France.

This LipDub would not have been possible without the inspiration and guidance of Leigh Wolf – Program coordinator and Ed Tech Extraordinaire. For this LipDub I acted as Producer and main camera operator and editor.  For this to take shape it was first determined which song we would use by a group decision made during an informal planning session held during one of the Teachmeet sessions organized by Leigh Wolf.  In that meeting it was determined that we would use the track Technologic by Daft Punk, both for its upbeat tempo and the contextual relevance of the lyrics to the MAET program.  You can see the original Daft Punk song here Technologic.

Production:

To better suit the track to our needs I slowed the track down to give the students (actors) enough time to pace out the lyrics and so that the camera would have enough time to make the desired transitions.

The program was separated by the three classrooms that make up each years cohort, and each year room was responsible for choreographing their own portion of the lipdub which starts in the year 1 room moving through years 2 and 3 followed by a group exit through the stairs.  The instructors were responsible for choreographing the transitions between classrooms and the final exit.

This lipdub was filmed during the intensely busy week of the MAET program which covers 9 credits in only 4 weeks so time was tight to fit the choreograph, rehearsal and final taping in between lectures and other course projects.  We were able to make 2 full practice runs to work out some of the kinks in timing and choreography before capturing the final run through.

To facilitate the filming I used a rather home-made rig of a Nikon D300s with a 18-200mm lens (capturing at 50mm) outfitted with a shotgun mic and Zacuto viewfinder secured on my Manfrotto tripod.  Affixed directly below the D300s was a GoPro HD unit set to capture a fisheye version simultaneously.  Since the goal when filming a LipDub is to get the entire thing on one take, I used the redundant camera setup so after it was recorded I would have two choices of video to choose from.  In this case, I ended up using the video shot with the primary D300s camera for the final take.

Image Courtesy of Leigh Wolf

You can watch the first ever MAET LipDub