Elaborate proposal viewed by millions

As of Thursday, more than 10 million people had watched Gina Johnson Morris, a Kalispell native, lead dozens of family and friends of Isaac Lamb and Amy Frankel in dance routines in a viral video sensation called the “first live lip-dub proposal.”

Morris, a 1999 Flathead High School graduate, was the standout woman in a red dress who choreographed and then led the dancing to “Marry You” by Bruno Mars as a lead-up to Lamb, 31, proposing to Frankel, 33.

Lamb uploaded the touching video to YouTube May 25, setting off a wildfire of downloads across the Internet. The version on YouTube, “Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal,” had 10.3 million views by Thursday morning.

By Monday morning, all the television network morning shows were clamoring to have the couple appear on their shows.

“It’s a bit overwhelming and a bit hard to process,” Morris said. “But it’s wonderful and amazing that something so precious to us is all around the Internet now. Part of me is so happy that the world is reacting to such a pure moment of joy in a real couple’s life.”

The video starts with a brief introduction from Lamb that explains he had Frankel meet him May 23 at his parents’ Portland house, where his brother, Connor, led her to sit in the rear of a Honda CR-V wearing headphones.

As the CR-V slowly moves down the road, the dance production, led by Morris and her husband, grows as more and more family and friends pop out from behind cars to join in, dancing and lip-synching to the Mars song.

Morris describes Lamb and Frankel as two of their best friends. She said Lamb did her wedding, a huge musical production in 2009 at the Bigfork Playhouse, when she married Lamb’s good friend Ammon Morris.

“So, when he wanted to propose, we had to raise the bar yet again with a full choreographed number,” Morris said. “So it was always something we sort of knew we would do — something big.”

The daughter of Christian and Catherine Johnson, now of Bigfork, Morris grew up in Kalispell surrounded by music and dance. Her father was an original member of the Mission Mountain Wood Band who now performs solo, and her mother was executive director of Northwest Ballet Co., where Morris served as a principal dancer for seven years.

According to Morris, she and Lamb first met when she graduated from Flathead High School in 1999 and went to Los Angeles to attend Loyola Marymont University, where she earned a degree in dance performance.

“I danced with a company called Meh-Tropolis Dance Theatre,” she said. “Isaac and I were actually in that dance theater together.”

After suffering burnout and some injuries, Morris moved to Portland in 2005.

She also continued her friendship with Lamb in Portland, who introduced her to Ammon, an actor and now a Web designer. Morris said she and Frankel, a dancer, actress and choreographer, became “soul sisters” after Lamb met Frankel at a “West Side Story” audition and the two began dating.

In fall 2009, Morris worked with Lamb and Frankel on a production of “Sweet Charity” that won several awards.

“The six members of the marching band [in the video] are from that cast and those are the actual costumes,” she said.

Recently, she and Frankel choreographed their first-ever opera for the Portland Opera’s production of “Candide” that closed two weeks ago.

Morris then got involved with Lamb in his production to accompany his proposal to Frankel.

Morris said he had a couple of ideas brewing, then came up with the live lip-dub proposal.

“That sort of struck a chord with me. I said, ‘I can see your vision there,’” she said.

A week and a half before the production date, Lamb gave Morris the song, his basic plan for the video and the names of the people who would participate. He told her they would have only one rehearsal, so she needed steps anyone could learn easily.

“I wrote a transcript of all the choreography as if I was saying it,” she said. “After our one rehearsal, Isaac videotaped me doing all the different parts separately so we could email that to all the big groups so we could say, ‘Learn it on your own as best you can.’”

The big day arrived May 23 when Lamb and Frankel had a day off together. A diversion kept the notoriously early Frankel from showing up too soon so they could run through the production.

“We were crouching behind the cars for about 10 minutes and then there she was, and we went for it and it worked out beautifully,” Morris said. “It was such a genuine moment.”

The video included people dancing up to the back of the CR-V with laptops showing Frankel’s mother dancing in her wedding dress with her dad in a tux in Florida, her sister in Massachusetts, her brother’s family in California and friends in New York and Alabama, all dancing to “Marry You.”

While one camera caught the action in front of Frankel, a second recorded her face and allows viewers to watch her expressions in the corner of the edited video as she takes in the musical production followed by Lamb dropping to his knee to propose.

Morris said the run-through beforehand was better choreographically but the real thing had the magic of the moment because everyone had eye contact with Frankel. The dancers kept up their routine beyond the time they were supposed to quit.

“It was powerful, really, really powerful,” Morris said. “We were all so excited that we could hardly contain ourselves. We had to keep moving until she said yes.”

The next weekend, the avalanche of Internet downloads brought Lamb and Frank numerous invitations, including one to appear Tuesday morning on the “Today Show,” their favorite. Their production even caught the eye of the song’s creator, Mars, who tweeted:

“Congrats to Isaac Lamb and the future Mrs. ... I don’t think I could’ve made a better music video for this song. Thank you.”

Morris has received an invitation to go to New York in June to speak at The State of Now’s conference on the influence of the Internet on business.

“When the video started getting really popular, I was contacted by the founder,” she said. “He said he would love to have me come and speak about the making of the video and what went into it.”

Morris said she hopes other opportunities come up, although she said no one produced this video for attention. Before this, she said Lamb considered setting her up with Ammon his crowning moment in life.

“He called us his proudest achievement,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know. I think maybe we’ve gotten bumped.”

People interested in watching the video should visit www.youtube.com and look for “Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal” or go to http://vimeo.com/42828824.