Lipsync 2009

Third year Theatre/Media students have an assignment called ‘Indoor Event’ where we work as a team to put on a show – from ‘Bump In’ to ‘Bump Out’ – all in a 24 hour period. Ours was Tuesday night; we put on Lipsync 2009 in the Unibar and it was so much fun.

Lipsync is a Bathurst Campus tradition, resembling a talent quest, a bar night and possibly just a platform for class clowns everywhere. Communications students in their first year have an assignment where they get into small groups and devise a performance, lipsyncing along to a song of their choice.

It doesn’t sound much like work, and it isn’t, but the trick is to come up with an innovative twist to your performance. The message you send in your song needs to be clever and funny, and you compete with all the other groups to have yours performed at Lipsync night. Only ten groups make it in on the night, then a winner is chosen – best of the best.

While the first years are the ones performing their acts, the third years are the ones who run the show from beginning to end, and in every capacity. Our year divides up into departments – Set, Lights, Sound, Marketing, Audio Visual and Multi Media, Stage Management, Production Management, Master of Ceremonies – and plan how the night will run.

I worked in the marketing department. We designed posters and put them up around campus, we advertised in chalk on the pavements, we talked to people about the event, we organised buses to take people to downtown pubs afterwards, and on the night we sold tickets and ushered everyone inside.

Tuesday – the day of the show – all hands were on deck from 7.30am until about 10.30pm. Bump In involves moving everything you need into the venue and setting up for the show. The stage had to be erected and dressed, lights rigged, focused and plotted, AV and sound had to be rigged, and everything needed to be rehearsed.

We had a technical rehearsal in the early afternoon where the Lipsync groups came in and performed their pieces for us. We tested the sound and lights, and the Stage Managers practiced moving props and set pieces on and off stage.

We had four or five cameras, which we used for a live-feed projection on two screens on either side of the stage, so that was rehearsed as well.

We decided as a year that the theme for the evening should be “Baywatch”. We decorated everything in Baywatch paraphernalia and our MC’s were dressed as well-known characters and performed skits throughout the night.

We had around 370 people come to see the show. By all accounts a fun night was had by all – the winning team used Linkin Park’s song In The End and their performance was all about enemas. Gettit? People got naked on stage too. It was a bit of a riot. There were standing ovations and screaming and shouting.

Once the show was over, we had to Bump Out. As you may be able to guess, this means removing everything from the venue and packing it away. All thirty of us third years worked like Trojans and an hour and forty-five minutes later we were at the pub. That’s teamwork.

Welcome

Hello, I’m Penny and I’m doing a BA - Communications (Theatre / Media). I’m in my third year at the moment and I love it.

In third year you get thrown in the deep end with the productions and events the course puts on. At the moment we are furiously preparing for Lipsync 2009 which will be held in the Uni Bar next Tuesday. I am working on the marketing for this event.

In June I will be appearing as Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia in the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre. This is very exciting – it’s my first professional production. At the end of the year I will be producing my own major work – a comedy show to be filmed in the television studios on campus in front of a live audience. All very crazy.

Welcome to my blog I will do my very best to make it interesting.