Aragon’s Renaissance Leadership organized the third school-wide Lip Dub which took place on Nov. 22. Usually, the Lip Dubs take place in the begining of spring semester. This year’s Lip Dub was formatted differently from previous years, featuring vignettes featuring different groups at Aragon, a new storyline and a conclusion with the student body cheering in the gym at the October Homecoming Rally. It took 80 minutes to record the video.
This year, the Lip Dub was run by junior Harbani Jaggi.
“I remember walking on the Aragon campus for the first time as an eighth-grader,” Jaggi said. “I was very scared because I was from outside of the district and going to school in Palo Alto. I wasn’t sure if I’d fit in this community. But [when my Big Buddies] showed me the first-ever all-school Lip Dub [it] showed me that anybody can fit in [at Aragon].”
This year’s Lip Dub explored Aragon’s development of spirit. It begins with the school having no spirit and then tells of the journey of finding spirit. Inspired by the Latin phrase “E Pluribus Unum,” the name of the theme was “Many of One.”
“I personally feel [that the theme is] really true to our Aragon community,” Jaggi said. “It really conveys how Aragon is diverse. We really pride ourselves [over that] so we wanted to highlight our various opportunities and student groups in the Lip Dub.”
One vignette feature was Key Club.
“[Key Club] is known for being one of the most spirited [groups] on campus. [We had the chance] to show that during the Lip Dub,” said sophomore Courtney Tai. “We made [club colored] tutus and ears and had our members buy some [other] gear to wear during the Lip Dub so that [we] could be extra spirited.”
Some Lip Dub songs were “High Hopes,” “Party In The USA” and “My House.”
“Songs are always a challenge [to choose] because we want to make sure that they are reflective of our community,” said Leadership adviser Melissa Perino. “We don’t want to use songs with dehumanizing language. We try to make sure that our lyrics are gender and sexuality inclusive.”
Aragon’s Music Production Club mashed nine songs together, contrasting the previous one song the lip dub had in 2016.
“Leadership chose the songs and asked our club to put them together,” said senior Kai Xu. “We thought that the songs were an interesting mix [since] not all of [them] were the same. [They had] lots of different textures, but we thought that made [the Lip Dub] even more interesting.”
Through an audition process, Leadership selected performers to lip-sync the songs.Junior and vignette lip dubber Blaine Reynolds explains his experience in the lip dub.
“Being a main part of it [was] interesting [since I could] show how excited I am about Aragon [and] I’ll get to look back on that in the future,” said Reynolds.
Junior Kayla Li filmed this year’s Lip Dub with the help of photography and video teacher Nick Carrillo. She worked with clubs to film vignettes, edit music and assist in filming the school wide portion.
“Towards the beginning I approached Harbani,” Li said. “I let her know that I was interested in filming it so she told me to film the vignette section. They gave me a list of clubs and a track of music and told me to schedule [the] planning. I [then] made a schedule and broke up all of the lyrics into a spreadsheet. I assigned each group a set of lyrics and then filmed it over the span of about five weeks.”
Carrillo explains his process of working with Renaissance Leadership for filming the Lip Dub.
“Leadership and I [plan] the route that [the lip dubbers take]. We not only look at where we can place the lip dubbers but [also] clubs, sports teams or groups that are going to be around them. We’re also looking at lighting because when the camera’s going from outside to inside or inside to outside [and] consider its adjustments.”
Despite its unifying message, some students believe that the lip dub is not an accurate reflection of Aragon’s student body.
“I feel like the lip dub glorifies all of Aragon which isn’t accurate because [for example] there are always going to be some [clubs] that aren’t very active or involved,” senior Aryanna Zahabi said. “And the lip dub makes it seem that Aragon is a perfect school which is understandably the image we want to put out, but it’s inaccurate.”
Moreover, some students did not know about the survey provided by Leadership.
“I was in the Jabberwocky group [and] I did not choose that,” said sophomore Bree Martin. “I didn’t get to choose anything. We never took a fifth period [survey nor] was I aware that there was [one]. I don’t know if a teacher forgot to mention it, but I know a lot of other students that also weren’t aware that there was a fifth period [survey], so they placed us randomly. I think [the Lip Dub] should be better organized.”
Although there were some mishaps when organizing this year’s Lip Dub, it continues to bring the community together at Aragon.
The Lip Dub will be shown during the winter formal rally in the spring semester.
