The Grand Rapids Lipdub Video

In a January article at the Newsweek magazine website, Seth Fiegerman named Grand Rapids, Michigan one of America’s “dying cities”. The folks in Grand Rapids weren’t amused. On May 22nd, 5000 awesome people in that town came together to film a monster lipdub set to Don Maclean‘s “American Pie”. This amazing video — which Robert Ebert declared “the greatest music video ever made” — features marching bands, fire trucks, motorcades, weddings, helicopter flights, and a bridge on fire.

This people of Grand Rapids are awesome:

Rob Bliss, who acted as director and executive producer, explained the impetus for the project:

This video was created as an official response to the Newsweek article calling Grand Rapids a “dying city.” We disagreed strongly, and wanted to create a video that encompasses the passion and energy we all feel is growing exponentially, in this great city. We felt Don McLean’s “American Pie,” a song about death, was in the end, triumphant and filled to the brim with life and hope.

This isn’t the first lipdub video to go viral on the internet; it’s just the one with the largest scope. Here are some other lipdub videos from years gone by:

• The “Flagpole Sitta” lipdub video in the offices of Vimeo and College Humor. (This is the first lipdub I remember seeing.)
• The “I Gotta Feeling” lipdub video from students at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
• A similar production from the students at the University of Vic: the “Hey Soul Sister” lipdub video.
• The Hall and Oates lipdub video from students at Shorewood High School in Washington state. (The trick here? They filmed it in reverse! Watch it if you don’t know what I mean.)

As you can imagine, a stunt with the size and scope of the Grand Rapids lipdub video doesn’t just happen. It takes planning, hard work, and practice. Though the final video is one continuous shot, it took several attempts to get that one shot. Things went wrong in each take. The final video is the best of of the bunch.

If you’d like to learn more about the Grand Rapids lipdub video, here’s a four-minute behind the scenes clip that shows how it was made.