‘10 Years Later, 10 Years Greater’: North Hills High School video pays tribute to predecessor

When she was in elementary school, Avery Gallagher saw a video featuring a mass lip-synching effort by North Hills High School students of the time.

“It just blew me away,” she said. “It was kind of something that I had always seen and found myself going back to watch as I grew up, and I always thought it would be really cool if North Hills was able to do another one. It never happened when I was in middle school or high school.”

So as president of the North Hills Class of 2024, she decided to make it happen by directing “10 Years Later, 10 Years Greater,” which pays tribute to the 2014 video that made such a strong impression on her.

On May 10, students representing more than 50 sports teams, clubs and activities took part in the filming by lip synching — plenty of choreography was involved, as well — to a medley of top songs from the past decade, as mixed by then-junior Mikey Geyer.

“The big thing to take away is that there was actually no video editing, because it was all in one take,” Evan King, senior class sponsor and the project’s faculty adviser, said.

Yes, videographer Jack Alexander captured everything he needed by taking his camera on a nearly eight-minute tour of the school, from the set of the televised morning announcements to a closing rave-up with cheerleaders holding signs that read, “We Are North Hills.”

Quite a bit of planning and preparation contributed to the successful execution.

“We timed out how long it would take to walk through each part of the school and figured out a path that we wanted to take, and then Mikey mixed the music to match that timing,” Avery explained.

“I drew a map of the school, as best I could, and labeled where each particular club or activity would go,” she said. “And we had a whole spreadsheet of every individual student to make sure we had enough people to fill up every place.”

She and Jack, who graduated May 31, started working with Mikey concepts for the video as far back as November, and they picked up the pace as spring approached.

“We talked to some people who helped with the last one, got their input of challenges they faced and things they wished they would have known,” Avery said. The 2014 video, directed by Nick Ross, is set to the song “Wake Me Up” by the late Swedish DJ and remixer Avicii.

In the opening scene of “10 Years Later, 10 Years Greater,” Avery appears on North Hills’ morning announcements, ostensibly to reminisce.

“You know what? We’re actually doing another lip dub this year,” she tells the announcement co-hosts, who expressed disbelief. And then:

“We’re doing it today, actually.”

With that, the camera angle widens. The music starts, and Jack begins his videography journey.

Part of the video celebrates the $129,739 raised in the past decade by NHthon, an annual high school event that benefits the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Make a donation to contribute to next year’s total at nhsd.info/nhthon-donations.

As the schoolwide sequence unfolded, Avery had mixed feelings.

“I was definitely very excited about it, because I had put in all this time,” she said. “But I was definitely very nervous to get it done and just make sure that everything fell into place, which it did fall into place very nicely.”

King agreed.

“What’s really enlightening was the trust that Avery and the crew had in all the students. And we all did. So anything could go wrong at any point, but we trusted the students to follow through,” he said. “Everybody just really came together to make it special, and I think that just drives home the point of what great students we have here at North Hills.”

To view “10 Years Later, 10 Years Greater,” visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXKZsONjk70.