Happy Together/Paper Planes Lip Dub
As this year's list of the top viral videos clearly shows, not all that goes viral is great. The flipside is also sadly true: not all great videos go viral. So the multimedia staff at TIME.com came up with a second list of some of the more surprisingly good web videos from the past year: the sleeper hits, clever productions and awesome artistry that have flickered on our computer screens and stuck in our heads. As we looked at the entries and narrowed them down to the 10 best, we saw a theme emerge: talent.
And what better video to kick off a most-talented list than this infectiously happy gem from Toulouse? Using the long tracking shot (one of Hollywood's coolest conventions, whether it's in the hands of a master like Orson Welles or in a viral ad selling whiskey), students at the French graphic arts school Axe Sud Toulouse show equal parts enthusiasm and precision as they lip dub a mix of "Happy Together" and M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes." Done in one take, the camera floats and meanders through the school, up stairs and into classrooms, where surprises await the viewer at every turn. Who knew there could be such glee in lip synching to a Russian band's cover version of a Turtles song?