Two student organizations at UF are blurring the lines between a hit summer song and the Gator Nation.
Students from the UF Pre-Med American Medical Student Association, AMSA, uploaded a video entitled “Blurred Lines (Premed Parody) - University of Florida” onto YouTube Wednesday evening.
Emphasizing the increased academic burden placed on pre-med students and highlighting problems in required courses, the parody of the Robin Thicke song had more than 3,000 views by Thursday night.
Zachary Field, a 21-year-old UF biology senior and a director in the Medical College Forum within AMSA, wrote the lyrics. He said the three film sessions that went into making the video added up to more than six hours of film.
“We tried to incorporate every aspect of being a pre-med, like the MCAT, organic chem and living at the library,” he said.
In the video, Ivana Hernandez, a 20-year-old health science junior sings “Oh man, what was I thinking? Four-year wager. ‘Cause life is so tough, should’ve been a business major.”
“It wasn’t political or meant to be taken seriously,” Field said. “We’re just a bunch of students expressing the miseries of being a pre-med student.”
Previously, the video was shot at an AMSA retreat, said Tara Tavakoli, a 19-year-old UF microbiology and nutrition sophomore and AMSA member, but it was done on a low quality camera.
Field searched on Facebook for a film crew. He found the Gainesville branch of Tangible Productions, a student-run film organization that originated in Palm Bay, Fla.
Tangible co-founder and branch director John Barton, also a 19-year-old UF computer engineering sophomore, offered to provide his equipment and editing software to help.
“I enjoyed being able to work collaboratively with another student organization,” he said.
The collaboration lasted about two weeks, and AMSA worked to include 35 students and campus buildings.
“It’s fun to see parody videos featuring locations you walk by every day,” said Kyle Willems, a 19-year-old civil engineering sophomore.
The video, which Field said was originally created for entertainment, transformed into a promotional advertisement for AMSA.
“It’s just a fun video that we made about life as a pre-med student,” he said.
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 9/6/2013 under the headline "Hey, hey, hey: Students parody “Blurred Lines”"
