Lip dub brought students and staff together at École Qayqayt Elementary school last month.
Representatives from the downtown school were at the November school board meeting to talk about the experience and share the final product with staff and trustees.
The idea to do a lip dub video was brought to administrators by music teacher Allison Penner. Lip dub is a music video where a group of people lip sync a song that is then dubbed over the video during editing. It is often filmed in one continuous take, too.
Penner suggested the school take on the ambitious endeavour as a way to foster an inclusive school community, which is one of Qayqayt staff’s goals for this school year.
“This project, to me, is bang on,” Penner said.
“We really wanted to create an identity of who we are. We wanted the Grade 5s to become leaders. We wanted to create that sense of community that Robson (Elementary) had so many years ago,” she added.
So Penner went to work recruiting Grade 5 students. It was up to them to choose a song, decide who would be “singing” what parts and teaching the younger students the grand finale dance. Gabriel Junio, one of the grade 5 students at Qayqyat, filmed the video, which was especially tricky because it was all one take and he had to walk backwards the entire time.
“I wanted to be the cameraman to take on a leadership role and film the whole school,” he told trustees and staff, adding the project wouldn’t have been possible without help from the teachers.
