Eight months ago, a small group of redditors began an ambitious, collaborative, occasionally meta-filled project to unleash their combined gif-making powers on the world of lyric videos.

The result was “HQG Studios,” which has since evolved from a brilliant, one-off project to a Reddit institution highlighting the originality, irreverence, and team spirit of one of our favorite communities: r/HighQualityGifs.

Play, Play, Play…

On October 3, r/HighQualityGifs moderator extraordinaire u/hero0fwar debuted HQG Studios, a collective he formed with other all-star contributors to the subreddit, who joined forces to take on something a bit outside the scope of a single gif.

“I got the idea a couple of years ago here,” he writes, “always wanted to do a full music video with fun lyrics done instead of that boring black screen lyric video everyone is used to, but doing a full video yourself can be extremely tedious.

“Then a year or so later I ran into this YouTube video and got the idea to bring others on board. I threw the idea out to a couple of guys and the next thing you know we have 18 of us working on the Swift video.”

The plan was simple: take the official video for Taylor Swift’s song “Shake It Off,” divvy it up among a few talented volunteers, give each gif-maker artistic freedom to put a unique spin on their assigned section, and put all the pieces together into one fluid series of high-quality gifs, colloquially known as a “video.”

The execution, however, was anything but easy.

For the first project, 17 gif-makers were working simultaneously on their respective sections, each spending several days creating their piece of the video. Once they edited their gifs together (with direction from u/hero0fwar), the finished result was a fascinating passion project that showcased the editing skills and sometimes random imagination of its creators.

You can view highlights from the final video below:

What People Say

The response to the first HQG Studios release was overwhelmingly positive, with almost 900 comments, over 16,000 upvotes, and the true mark of success in r/HighQualityGifs: other posts referencing the original.

Two days later, u/hero0fwar created a new subreddit, r/HQGStudios, proof that their creative endeavor was here to stay.

The next video the team gave the HQG treatment was Mackelmore’s “Thrift Shop,” which presented new editing challenges that the monochromatic backgrounds and sparse sets of “Shake It Off” didn’t.

It begins with Macklemore and company cycling into a sign for HQG Studios, a well-placed tattoo reading “MEME LIFE,” and an appropriately meta nod to their last video.

When u/hero0fwar shared the finished product, redditors gave it a similarly enthusiastic reception, but this time the HQG team caught the eye of Dahlia Dandashi at The Daily Dot, who wrote, “Macklemore’s ‘Thrift Shop’ is way better in GIF form.”

You can watch the full video below and judge for yourself:

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

So far this year, the HQG Studios team has followed up with two more lyric videos—the Bruno Mars song “24k Magic” in March, the long-awaited Swift sequel “Bad Blood” in April, and Eminem’s “Rap God” earlier this month.

But they’ve also ventured outside the realm of music videos, with their take on the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and more creative productions in the works.

“I would love to see this project get in front of some mainstream companies,” u/hero0fwar explains. “I have already had some contact with a couple of record labels, but it has not evolved into any projects yet…”

In the meantime, HQG Studios will keep giffing, and they likely can’t or simply won’t stop adding meta. It’s like they’ve got these movies, in their minds…

For for the latest HQG productions, check out r/HQGStudios. You can follow u/hero0fwar on his new profile page here.