Last year, the Dalhousie Student Union took a journey to ‘Dal-ifornia’ to get new students excited about coming to the university. And while the video was truly ‘unforgettable’, the DSU has something even bigger in store for this year.
Rather than produce another lip dub, like ‘Dal-ifornia Gurls’, organizers decided to create something totally unique with an original song, written and produced by members of the Dal community. And according to producer Mohaned El Bolkiny, a second-year pharmacy student at Dal, this one will blow everything else out of the water.
The video will be released in early August, but there is still one last piece to film: organizers are looking for as many people as possible—students, faculty, staff and community—to come out on Friday, July 22 and participate as extras in the video’s final scene. All who are interested are asked to meet at the Student Union Building at 9 a.m.
The song, "See You in September" is performed by George Woodhouse, Iain MacNeil, Rosanna Burrill and David Cambell, written with the vision of making a video like no one had seen before. (Though they did have experience: several of the collaborators worked on the popular “Student Poverty Song” video that also garnered a great deal of attention online when it was released earlier this year.)
While the video is intended for Dal students, anyone coming to Halifax for the first time will appreciate the lyrics, the spirit, and the east coast feel.
“This is a welcome video to people coming to Dal and to the city. We want to show them what they’ll experience when moving to the city and prepare them for what Halifax has to offer,” explains director Dillon Garland, a film student at the Centre for Arts and Technology in Halifax who was brought in to help work on the project.
“We know the people that come to Dal are from all over the world with different backgrounds and interests. We tried to make this video something that can be seen and enjoyed by everyone.”
Although Mr. Garland and Mr. El Bolkiny didn’t work on ‘Dal-ifornia Gurls,’ both acknowledged the feedback received after it garnered a great deal of attention and say the comments were taken into consideration when making this video.
“We made the video with students as our primary audience but we always had in the back of our minds the parents sending their kids here, the professors coming from abroad who’ll be starting to teach here and the community at large,” says Mr. Garland. “We tried to incorporate as much feedback as we could and still manage to create something that will really leave a mark.”
Despite the large campus and busy summer schedules, the creative team say the support has been tremendous.
“We’ve had collaboration from all over the campus from students, staff, faculty and alumni,” says Mr. El Bolkiny. “It’s been such a great experience and we’re so grateful that the Dal community has been so helpful.”
The video's final scene will be filmed in the Student Union Building on Friday, July 22 starting at 9 a.m. All are invited to attend and join in.
Sneak peek: