Having spent a year of my youth as a student in a French university, I am slightly disappointed now to know that I was never fortunate enough to have witnessed anything like this. Maybe it’s something that they put into the water at the University of Rouen?

I’m always amazed when I see an amazingly executed big lip-sync video start doing the rounds. Ever since the now classic Collected Ventures’ version of Harvey Danger’s Flagpole Sitta, I’ve been fascinated by how much creativity is needed to pull something like this together.

Taking the above Thriller video as an example…

1. Presumably most of the people in the video don’t speak English as their first language yet many do a great job in lip-synching along to the words
2. The whole clip was filmed in what appears to be one shot – imagine how many takes they would have had to filmed to get it right
3. The clip is shot on campus and spreads over a lecture hall, individual classrooms, stairwells, corridors, IT rooms, etc. That’s a lot of planning that needs to be done to get everything in-shot
4. There is probably a cast here of 100+ students – each with their moment of fame!

Timing. It all comes down to timing. Bloody brilliant!

Thanks to Stuart from My Chemical Toilet for the find.  Happy Halloween to you all!

UPDATE (26/10/08): The French seem to have a creative obsession with MJ’s Thriller.

Below is Françoise Macré’s weird but wonderful version of the 80′s classic all recorded in 64-track a’capella. He’s individually recorded all of the parts that make up the vocals and instrumentals of the song and then reassembled it into a visual and audio feast for the senses…

This guy’s clearly a few zombie’s short of a graveyard but I have to say that I’m loving all of this Halloween inspired Jacko madness. You just can’t Beat It. Sorry. That’s Bad.

François Macré – Thriller (reprise A’cappella 64 pistes)

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