Students at National Hsinchu Girls’ Senior High School made a music video for their graduation titled Backward Glance (回眸) that went viral on YouTube after being uploaded on May 19.
Backward Glance was a collaboration of the school’s “Hot Voice” club and other musically inclined students from the graduating class, said Hsu Kuan-ning (許冠寧), who was composer, director and pianist for the video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_zxqFmE9hE).
The composition is an expanded remix of the school’s anthem, with classmates Chen Pei-ching (陳沛晴) and Chang Ya-wen (張雅雯) having penned additional lyrics, Hsu said.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
A quartet of club members — Fang Yu-ling (房鈺玲), Chang Huai-ting (張懷庭), Tsai Yi-ting (蔡沂庭) and Liao Tsung-yun (廖宗筠) — provided the vocals, she said.
Guitarists Wu Yu-nien (巫宥嫺) and Tsou Chih-yun (鄒芷芸), bassist Chang Yen-chen (張晏禎) and drummers Kuo Tai-shuang (郭代?), Ken Hsi-ning (根喜寧) and Peng Hsin-jui (彭歆睿) contributed to the instrumental part of the song, she said.
Although a classically trained pianist, Hsu said the composition was aimed at a broader audience.
The production team paid for all expenses out-of-pocket, because they wanted to document the memories for their classmates.
The video’s sleek, professional camerawork was widely praised, but camera crew Chiang Chun-wei (姜淳崴) and Lo Yi-chen (羅苡宸) said that it was shot entirely with ordinary cameras, adding that they had selected stories and scenes by student consensus.
Student Huang Tzu-peng (黃子芃) handled the post-production, including the audio recording, they said.
Chiang was happy that YouTube users liked their project, she said, adding that she would continue to pursue her interest in film production at National Taiwan Normal University’s Department of Graphic Arts and Communications.
Chung Yu-ching (鍾宇晴), Fang, Chang Yen-chen and Hsu had acting roles in the video.
They were surprised and delighted by the video’s reception, they said, adding that it was their graduation gift to the class.
The school has a proud tradition of students composing a graduation song and the students voted for Backward Glance over two other entries to be this year’s song, principal Lu Shu-mei (呂淑美) said.
“Backward Glance resonated with many of the students and its use of the school anthem showed technical mastery,” she said.
The school is to play the song at the graduation ceremony tomorrow, she added.
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