Lip syncing - music vid

G

gorillaonabike

Does anyone have any experience of getting someone to lip sync? I personally just get the singer to sing a 'performance' but does anyone else have experience of this and have tips?

Thanks in advance.
 
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You're shooting a music video? Blast the shit out of the music. It can't be too loud. Of course, you have to pay attention to your surroundings, and I'm sure you'll be limited by both location and equipment. But as much as you can, keep the music at full-blast.

And yes, have the singer actually sing, not just lip-sync. Ditto for any instrumentalists. They shouldn't pretend to play, but actually play.
 
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Cracker Funk said:
You're shooting a music video? Blast the shit out of the music. It can't be too loud. Of course, you have to pay attention to your surroundings, and I'm sure you'll be limited by both location and equipment. But as much as you can, keep the music at full-blast.

And yes, have the singer actually sing, not just lip-sync. Ditto for any instrumentalists. They shouldn't pretend to play, but actually play.
Click to expand...

Thanks Cracker! Sounds good to me!
 
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Depends on your artists. Usually it's better for them to play/sing. I've been on music videos where the artist has mimed completely, though more often they sing along. The worst is 'live' playing clips, as nothing is plugged in so you don't hear any sound from the instrument except for the drums. Which by the end of the day you just wanna smash em ;)
 
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That was the point of my question. I wasn't quite sure if you had some other creative reasoning behind the lip syncing thing. Heck, if you are just shooting a video you're going to overlay the "scratch" track with the actual music/song so who cares what you do or how you record the scratch track?

I tried the lip syncing thing once and it was a disaster trying to lay the actual music. It's the little things like the "uh" and "uh-huh", the way the lips move during the actual enunciation of vowels and most importantly the timing that really messed me up. I had to cut away from so many CUs and ECUs that were important because the poor lip sync was so evident. Have the artist actually sing the song as it is on the final track and pay spacial attention to make sure they hit all the notes because sometimes even when they are actually singing the song they can just gloss over the performance which ends up being like lip syncing.

I never had to blast the music on my music videos. Since my lip syncing debacle I always make sure the artist were singing their song and getting into and enjoying the performance. Oh and yes, if there is an instrument being played make sure they play it to the original song as well, because faking the notes can be just as bad as out of sync lips - that stuff really bugs the music aficionados...almost, if not more so, as out of sync lips bug us.

Hope this helped.
 
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Question to add to this thread. Would any of you with experience with music videos even attempt a video until the final track of the song as been recorded? I've been asked to shoot a couple videos for a singer/songwriter, but the songs won't be in their final recorded stage until October when she heads to the studio. She indicated that she wants to shoot the video before she leaves, but in my mind every performance is slightly different and it could end up being very difficult to match what she records in the studio to what she sang while we shoot the video.

Does it make sense to tell her to wait until she has the 'official' recording of it before we shoot? This is my first foray into music videos and so need some guidance:)

Thanks!

Neil
 
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It depends what the video is. If it's a 'story' video, then you can potentially shoot it whenever, and you just need the finished song for the edit.

If it's a 'performance' video, or even part-performance video, where there's at least a section where we see the artist performing the song, then you'll need the finished song.
 
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Thanks...that's what I was thinking:) The video is part story/part performance, but all of it happening in one location and sometimes both parts in a single shot. Unless we change the script to break up the two aspects, I think I might have to talk to the singer and see if her mind can be changed:)

Thanks again!

Neil
 
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