Students with costumes dancing on library tables, school principal wearing an eagle head, and music blasting in the library. An unimaginable scene? Think again, as this was exactly what many saw on Wednesday as they gathered outside the library window after school.
On February 27, members of the girls and boys basketball teams along with other students and Upper School Division Head Butch Keller recorded a version of the Harlem Shake in the library.
“Harlem Shake,” originally a single released by Baauer in May of 2012, is a video meme that has gone viral this past month. Various groups have made parodies of the video displaying the same concept: a sole person dances while others are not paying attention, then the music changes and suddenly everyone is dancing.
With the help of Nick Gassmann, Pam Dickinson, MaryEllis Deacon, Eric Marten, and other members of the Office of Communication and the administration, the Upper School completed the entire process from planning to releasing within 48 hours.
“We were trying to make it look like a security camera, just observing the library,” Multimedia Specialist and videographer Eric Marten said. “It basically looked like the library was packed full of students that were really trying to study hard and then have Butch Keller come in and just have everyone go bananas after it […] Break loose from all the studying and show the fun side of the kids at Harker.”
The video took a total of six takes to shoot, three for the first part and three for the second. In between parts, students put on costumes with various props and got in position around the library. Many of the students who participated agreed that participating in the video was a fun and unique experience.
“I think it was really interesting just because a lot of people think of us as more like academic but [the video] kind of shows that we can have fun on our own too,” Christina Wong (11) said.
Some students believe that the Upper School was late in making the video compared to other groups, but several were still glad that one was eventually made.
“I think Harker was kind of behind the curve because everyone was already doing Harlem Shake videos and a bunch of other schools had done it,” John Hughes (11) said.
However, many students thought that the Harlem Shake videos had not lost their popularity just yet and enjoyed watching one that involved their peers.
“Harlem Shake is still popular; it hasn’t gotten any less popular from the time it started to now,” Lekha Chirala (10) said. “I thought it was pretty creative and unique. It was really funny to watch and it was cool to see Mr. Keller go crazy.”
The video is posted on Harker’s YouTube channel and linked through Facebook as well as the school website. It has already received 5,030 views in the past two days, making it the video with the third highest number of views on the channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM5wl5_DaUA