(Post 7) - lip-sync

POST 7: LIP-SYNC PRELIMINARY PRACTICE 

Lip-syncing move the lips silently in synchronisation with a pre-recorded soundtrack. It is used in the music industry when lip-synching is used by singers for music videos, television and film appearances and some types of live performances. Also, Lip-syncing by singers can even be controversial to fans attending concert performances who expect to view a live performance, but singers choose to lip-sync. Because the film track and music tracks are recorded separately during the creation of a music video, artists usually lip-sync their songs and often imitate playing musical instruments as well. Artists also sometimes move their lips at a faster speed than the recorded track, to create videos with a slow-motion effect in the final clip, which is widely considered to be complex to achieve. Similarly, some artists have been known to lip-sync backwards for music videos such that, when reversed, the singer is seen to sing forwards while time appears to move backwards in his or her surroundings. Notable exceptions to this trend include Bruce Springsteen's hit "Streets of Philidelphia" which only uses the instruments as a backing track while the vocals were recorded with a microphone attached on the singer, giving a different feel to it.

Student Made Video

I think that the lip-syncing in this music video is very effective as it looks professional and works well with the cross-cutting between the two scenes (the young woman and the story) and therefore works very well as a music video together. The lip-syncing is confident, believable and precise although there are some instances where the timing is out of sync with the music, which perhaps was an issue in editing. The lip-syncing also creates and adds to a rustic atmosphere of the video as it shows varied close-ups of the young woman, in an appropriate setting.

Student Made Video No. 2

On the other hand, this music video appears to be less convincing and more amateur looking, compared with the other student-made video, above. The shots of lip-syncing are generally less effective especially with the family on holiday but there are examples, however, where the band do have very good synchronisation with the music. Also, the playing of the musical instruments doesn't particularly look accurate or in keeping with the soundtrack. Overall, I think that the lip-syncing doesn't work 100% and needs some reworking in areas but shows in other places really good synchronisation are editing.

What difficulties you can imagine there are with lip-syncing?

In order to create an effective lip-syncing video, it's important to consider the aspects needed to, first, make a music video and then build in the lip-syncing in a similar style and atmosphere to make it appear natural, and well-fitting. However, this is more challenging than it seems, as it needs to synchronise together exactly at the same points. There are several problems or difficulties that can arise with lip-syncing. For instance, the mime artist needs to actually pronounce the words exactly the same as the singer does and they need to mime at the same speed as well as getting the lyrics right and the same emphasis on each word or letter being sung. This is not an easy task and in fact, take lots of time to re-take and get exactly the same information, and stuff you got in the last shot. 

I think there is a likelihood that we will use lip-syncing in our final video because I think that when it's done well, it can be very effective and often emotive. If the person who is miming is passionate in what they're singing it can be powerful and confident, almost as though the song is being sung in real time. If we did use lip-syncing our video, however, it would still be a mixture of narrative and lip-syncing performance because we think that just lip-syncing can become a little dull and tedious. It's also important to us that our video is as professional and effective as possible and in order to ensure this, we will take a lot of time and effort to make the lip-syncing as well timed and edited as possible.