Intern Blog

The project only had two rules: Don’t get arrested and don’t disrupt other classes.

With those two things in mind, college sophomore Hailey Temple recruited professors and students at Syracuse University to star in a video contest project between students, as part of a Social Media and Enterprises class. The contest challenged the students to create entertaining video spoofs of popular songs. Temple chose ‘Call Me Maybe’, which ended up making the “Ten Best ‘Call Me Maybe’ videos” on YouTube. The catchy pop-candy song, Call Me Maybe, by Carly Rae Jepsen has attracted attention from celebrities and made national headlines.

“I didn’t expect my final project to make the ‘Ten Best Call Me Maybe’ videos,” Temple said.

 “I knew that the song would be very familiar to people, so finding lots of students to sing the song would be much easier,” Temple, who is double majoring in Information Technology and PR, said.

So, what does it really take to get the entire campus of a Division I NCAA school to participate in such an invigorating video?

“From emails, to meetings, to just asking random students, anyone who knew the song became a part of the project,” Temple said. “Social media is all about relationships: people and their stories.”

Social media has become a big influence in the daily lives of everyone, and the Syracuse campus community was no different. Students grew closer together because everyone became very supportive and involved in making this project prominent. Professors and students spent an extensive amount of time studying lyrics and preparing for the film.

“Of course, people felt a bit awkward at first, but some were perfect on the first take and some started feeling better after a few takes,” Temple said. “We would work on it until they felt completely ready in front of the camera.”

Instead of numerous retakes in the filming process, Temple's goal was to bring out natural expressions and actions of the students, so as not to appear like a "perfectly edited" video. The final product took about two weeks to complete and the camera never left Temple’s hands.

Making the “Ten Best ‘Call Me Maybe’ videos” was a huge accomplishment for Temple: she never imagined her video being this successful.

“My jaw dropped when I saw my video on the Huffington Post, and several other blogs, next to videos made by Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and the Harvard Baseball Team,” Temple said.

The strong and proud campus community of Syracuse supported Temple through the entire process, representing a fantastic body of students and at the same time showing what the university has to offer.

The many thanks Temple received for how successful her video became inspired new goals for this rising sophomore. Temple says that this experience is opening new doors for opportunities, which are vital to surviving in the “real world.” A future goal of Temple’s is to create a business or charity that is inspired by the video.

Will there be more fun, spunky videos in the near future by Hailey Temple? "As soon as one ‘popular’ song sparks or another idea comes to fruition, I will have my camera out and ready,” Temple exclaimed.

After the video became such a hit, Temple was able to meet Jepsen in person at the Springle Ball 2012 in Philadelphia.

“She is as adorable and sweet as she is in her music video, and I was ecstatic to meet her,” Temple said. “I told her a little bit about my video and she thanked me for making it. Having the chance to hear her sing one of my favorite songs that has brought so much attention to Syracuse University was surreal!”

Syracuse University students will always be able to reminisce about this awesome video produced on their very own campus. Alumni remember professors that were included and even prospective students rave about how they want to come to SU because of this motivational, fun video. The video represents how easily a rather large student body came together through the spirit of song and video!

Click to view Temple’s Video!