Featuring 50 cities in seven days seems like impossible task to make a quality video, but a group of NMU students can attest to its plausibility.
The Pure Michigan Statewide Singalong, which was released on Sunday, Sept. 9, features a group of Northern Michigan University students singing a line in a song about the unique aspects of the state of Michigan.
“I was truly honored to be in a Pure Michigan video. I have so much pride for Michigan, and everyone in the U.S. should know what a beautiful place Michigan is,” said Lauren Larsen, a junior communications major from Brighton, Mich.
Marquette is the fourth city featured in the video and the filming took place on top of Sugarloaf Mountain.
The students were asked to meet at 7:45 a.m. and spent an hour or so practicing and filming their portion of the video before the film crew had to move on to the next city.
“The day that they filmed our section of the song, they had to go to around seven other cities to film, so they were on quite a time schedule,” Larsen said.
Status Creative, a design company with locations in Grand Rapids, Los Angeles and Chicago, sold the idea for the video to Pure Michigan with the stipulation that they visit the cities in Michigan in seven days.
The company had created the popular Grand Rapids Lip Dub which has more than four million views.
The Pure Michigan video is not a lip dub because the people in the video are actually singing the songs. The song featured is a parody of the Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen’s single, “Good Time.”
Rob Bliss, co-founder of Status Creative, said that the group of NMU students who participated were “great to work with” and “good singers.”
Bliss describes traveling to 50 cities in seven days, “physically exhausting but mentally inspiring.”
The video features cities throughout the state, in the U.P. and Lower Peninsula. Some of the cities include Grand Rapids, Caseville, Boyne City, Traverse City, Newberry, and many more.
Bliss was born and raised in Grand Rapids and said that this video has a personal importance to him.
“Showing the diversity of this state, everything it has to offer, was really important to me.”
Bliss said one of his favorite experiences in the week was parasailing in front of the Mackinaw Bridge.
Before the video was released on YouTube and the Pure Michigan website, it was shown at the Lions home opener at Ford Field in Detroit.
Bliss was at the game and saw the singalong as it aired to the stadium.
“It was awesome,” Bliss said. “I was glad to hear the cheering. (It was) a special moment for sure.”
Since being added onto YouTube, the video has reached more than 500,000 views. Bliss said that it is not scheduled to air on television, but with the national news coverage, it’s possible that it will in the future.
“Seeing it was so exciting. It was a little strange to see all of us on video, and know that so many other people will be watching it, but I was so happy to be a part of this huge project that involved so many people,” Larsen said.
