Cast of thousands for 'lip dub' at Spring-Ford High

With the last exam handed in, with prom dresses packed away, and the final bell of the year poised to ring, more than 2,400 students, teachers, and even the school cop at Spring-Ford Senior High erupted Friday afternoon in the ultimate end-of-school fireworks.

Actually, make that "Firework."

In less than four manic minutes preceded by eight months of preparation, the entire student body joyously lip-synched Katy Perry's 2010 hit for a fast-moving Steadicam as it passed through the crowded halls amid cascades of smoke and confetti. No retakes, no stop-and-starts, just one unblinking shot.

"It's our last experience as seniors, and we're going all-out," said class president Zach Erdman, video-ready with a sweep of blond hair across his forehead, sunglasses, white T-shirt, and jorts.

What looked like teen bedlam at the Royersford, Montgomery County, school was a viral video art form known as the "lip dub." It goes back a decade to one man - Jake Lodwick, co-founder of the music video site Vimeo - with a simple idea: to lip-sync a bouncy pop song in one live take, with a single camera traveling quickly through different locations.

As video-sharing sites such as YouTube exploded in the late 2000s, so did the lip dub, which grew to flash-mob proportions. It was tackled by major universities, the cast of TV's The Office, and reportedly 9,300 people in the town of Lindsay, Ontario.

Only a handful of high-quality lip dubs have been produced by high schools. Among them is a 2014 effort by another Montgomery County school, Souderton Area High, to the tune of Sara Bareilles' "Brave." It was so popular online that the students used it to raise money for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Cheryl Murgia, who teaches television and film courses at Spring-Ford, said the idea of a massive lip dub project had been kicking around the high school for several years.

"It took until now to get it up and running - 2,400 kids is a lot," said Murgia, whose students took the lead in planning and producing the extravaganza.

Mike Rice, the director, an 18-year-old senior from Limerick, had obsessed on the project since October. "This is something that I always wanted to do," said Rice, who has worked with the school TV station, RCTV, for the last three years.

On the day of the shoot, Rice looked the part of filmmaker, in a backward baseball cap and khaki cargo shorts. "It's mind-blowing," he said, striding through the hallway to check that everything was ready. "I still have my worries, but what director doesn't?"

If the pressure was on 17-year-old cameraman Chase Parr, who was using his own Steadicam, he wasn't showing it. "It shouldn't be a very difficult shoot - just one camera all the way through," said Parr, who is skilled at posting YouTube videos and is looking toward an eventual career in cinematography. "I have to frame it right, and that's about it."

After a practice run, they were ready to go. The halls were lined with cheering students, holding signs, confetti and pom-poms. Principal Patrick Nugent barked orders through a bullhorn.

It would be, in a sense, the longest three minutes and 40 seconds in the history of Spring-Ford High.

For the opening sequence, Nugent drove a Jeep to the front door. Beside him was the school's mascot, Rowdy Ram. In the back seat was Erdman, who leaped out and went into the school lip-synching the opening lines of "Firework."

As the song played through the school speakers, Parr powered along the halls. Kids jumped in and out of the camera frame, lip-synching, cheering, tossing confetti, doing back flips. Machine-made fog floated on the air. In one darkened zone, all that could be seen were glow sticks. In the cafeteria, the fire alarm went off.

School police officer Gwen Phillips, with dance moves that were on point, lip-synched through the gym in full uniform, gun included. The camera crew climbed the bleachers to the top row as the song ended.

"We have a good take. We're good," Murgia said excitedly into a walkie-talkie.

"It was crazy. We set the fire alarm off. What the heck?"

Director Rice looked as if he couldn't believe they did it. "It went great, fantastic," he said.

Was he relieved? "I won't be relieved until I see the final thing," he said.

The public won't be able to see the finished product until Tuesday at the earliest, on Vimeo.

In a genuine "lip dub," there's no editing; the only post-production work is dubbing in the Katy Perry recording. That may be the last time some of the key participants want to hear "Firework" for a while.

After "listening to it non-stop for the last couple of months," senior Emily McMenamin said, "I'm starting to get a little sick of it."

kboccella@phillynews.com

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@Kathy_Boccella