By Brad McLeod
After years of planning and countless hours in both pre and post production, the SFU Lip-Dub “End of the World” video was finally released on Dec. 21 2012, but unfortunately suffered the fate of direct-to-You-Tube distribution.
Despite having a large budget and a talented cast and crew, the ‘Dub was ultimately unable to garner the public interest required to receive a theatrical release and will only be made available as a YouTube video.
“I’m extremely disappointed,” commented one SFU student upon hearing the news and being reminded what a LipDub is. “I was really looking forward to going out and watching it but now I don’t know how I’m ever going see it. . . I’m not sure if I even own a YouTube player.”
Other students have expressed equal frustration at the release, especially those who participated in the video, who worry that its intended effect will be lost.
“This was supposed to be our big opportunity to showcase SFU to the world” explained Colin Chang, who has a brief cameo in the LipDub as Inexplicably Excited Person #147, “but by only releasing the video online, how can we truly convey to people how behind we are on trends?”
The video’s failure to secure the backing of a major bewildered, especially after its Halloween première, which drew crowds of tens of people, many of whom were unfortunately undergraduate students with little to no Hollywood connections.
“I may not be a big time movie producer, but I think that the LipDub would have been a huge success at the box office,” one of those undergraduates told The Peak. “I mean I know that 10 minutes isn’t the traditional length of a feature film, and most movies have more dialogue than just pop song lyrics, but it’s still got to be better than Jack and Jill, doesn’t it?”
Although organizers of the LipDub have claimed that YouTube is actually the “exact medium that the video was intended for,” and that they never planned to release the project in theatres, the delayed release of the video has caused many to believe that just a cover-up for the LipDub’s failure to make its way on to the silver screen.
“It doesn’t seem to matter how big or expensive they get, LipDubs just seem doomed to go right to YouTube or even worse, the dreaded direct-to- Vimeo release,” explained a local film expert. “It’s almost as if movie executives can’t see the artistic value behind running around mouthing the words to pop songs.”
Although the news may be disappointing for SFU, some good has come from the LipDub’s direct-to-YouTube release, with the video’s comment section finally giving an outlet for SFU and UBC students to come together to compare schools and determine once and for all which university is more of a “garbage” institution.
