Lip sync
Encyclopedia
Lip sync, lip-sync, lip-synch (short for lip synchronization
) is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. The term can refer to any of a number of different techniques and processes, in the context of live performances and recordings.
In the case of live concert performances, lip-synching is a commonly-used shortcut, but it can be considered controversial. In film production, lip synching is often part of the post-production phase. Dubbing
foreign-language films and making animated characters appear to speak both require elaborate lip-synching. Strategy video game
s make extensive use of lip-synced sound files to create an immersive environment.
) or to misattribute vocals (e.g. Milli Vanilli
), it is more often used by recording artists to create a particular effect, to enable them to perform live dance numbers, or to cover for illness or other deficiencies during live performance. Sometimes lip-synching performances are forced by television for short guest appearances, as it requires less time for rehearsals and hugely simplifies the process of sound mixing. Some artists, however, lip-synch as they are not as confident singing live and lip-synching can eliminate the possibility of hitting any bad notes. The practice of lip synching during live performances is frowned on by many who view it as a crutch only used by lesser talents.
Because the film track and music track are recorded separately during the creation of a music video
, artists usually lip-sync to their songs and often imitate playing musical instrument
s as well. Artists also sometimes move their lips at a faster speed from the 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 for his or her surroundings.
Artists often lip-sync certain portions during strenuous dance
numbers in both live and recorded performances, due to lung capacity being needed for physical activity (both at once would require incredibly trained lungs). For example, artist Will Smith
avoided lip-syncing during his dance and vocal performance of "Wild Wild West" at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards, where it was evident that he was nearly out of breath at the song's conclusion. Artists may also lip-sync in situations in which their back-up bands and sound systems cannot be accommodated, such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
which features popular singers lip-synching while riding float
s, or to disguise their lacking of singing ability, particularly in live or non-studio environments. Some singers habitually lip-sync during live performance, both concert and televised. Some artists switch between live singing and lip-synching during the performance of a single song.
's performance on the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever
(1983) changed the scope of live stage show. Ian Inglis, author of Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (2006) notes the fact that "Jackson lip-synced 'Billie Jean' is, in itself, not extraordinary, but the fact that it did not change the impact of the performance is extraordinary; whether the performance was live or lip-synced made no difference to the audience." In 1989, a New York Times article claimed that "Bananarama
's recent concert at the Palladium", the "first song had a big beat, layered vocal harmonies and a dance move for every line of lyrics", but "the drum kit was untouched until five songs into the set, or that the backup vocals (and, it seemed, some of the lead vocals as well-a hybrid lead performance) were on tape along with the beat". The article also claims that "British band Depeche Mode
, ...add vocals and a few keyboard lines to taped backup onstage" although this practice is common place in the genre of electric music.
Chris Nelson of The New York Times
reported that by the 1990s, "[a]rtists like Madonna
and Janet Jackson
set new standards for showmanship, with concerts that included not only elaborate costumes and precision-timed pyrotechnics but also highly athletic dancing. These effects came at the expense of live singing." Edna Gundersen of USA Today
reported: "The most obvious example is Madonna's Blond Ambition World Tour
, a visually preoccupied and heavily choreographed spectacle. Madonna lip-syncs the duet Now I'm Following You, while a Dick Tracy character mouths Warren Beatty's recorded vocals. On other songs, background singers plump up her voice, strained by the exertion of non-stop dancing."
Similarly, in reviewing Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation World Tour, Michael MacCambridge of the Austin American-Statesman
commented "[i]t seemed unlikely that anyone—even a prized member of the First Family of Soul Music—could dance like she did for 90 minutes and still provide the sort of powerful vocals that the '90s super concerts are expected to achieve."
The music video for Electrasy
's 1998 single "Morning Afterglow
" featured lead singer Alisdair McKinnell lip-syncing the entire song backwards. This allowed the video to create the effect of an apartment being tidied by 'un-knocking over' bookcases, while the music plays forwards.
In 2004, US pop singer Ashlee Simpson
appeared on the live comedy TV show Saturday Night Live, and during her performance, "she was revealed to apparently be lip-synching". According to "her manager-father[,]...his daughter needed the help because acid reflux disease had made her voice hoarse." Her manager stated that "Just like any artist in America, she has a backing track that she pushes so you don’t have to hear her croak through a song on national television." During the incident, vocal parts from a previously performed song began to sound while the singer was "holding her microphone at her waist"; she made "some exaggerated hopping dance moves, then walked off the stage".
During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, CTV news reported that a "nine-year-old Chinese girl's stunning performance at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony has been marred by revelations she was lip-synching". The article states that "Lin Miaoke was lip-synching Friday to a version of "Ode to the Motherland" sung by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was deemed not pretty enough to perform as China's representative".
During Super Bowl XLIII
, "Jennifer Hudson
's flawless performance of the national anthem" was "lip-synched ...to a previously recorded track, and apparently so did Faith Hill
who performed before her". The singers lip-synched "...at the request of Rickey Minor
, the pregame show producer", who argued that "There's too many variables to go live." Subsequent Super Bowl national anthems were performed live.
On the 2009 finals of The X Factor
, Cheryl Cole
partly mimed one of her new songs. In 2009, US pop singer Britney Spears
was " 'extremely upset' over the savaging she has received after lip-synching at her Australian shows".
Teenage viral video
star Keenan Cahill
lip-syncs popular songs on his YouTube
channel. His popularity has increased as he included guests such as rapper 50 Cent
in November 2010 and David Guetta
in January 2011, sending him to be one of the most popular channels on YouTube in January 2011.
to attract customers. The contests were so popular he took the contests nationwide. By 1984 he had contests running in over 20 cities and after submitting a show proposal went to work for Dick Clark Productions
as consulting producer for the TV series Puttin' on the Hits
. The show received an impressive 9.0 rating the first season and was nominated twice for the Daytime Emmy Awards. In the United States
, this hobby
reached its peak during the 1980s, when several game shows, such as Puttin' on the Hits
and Lip Service
, were created. The Family Channel had a Saturday morning show called Great Pretenders where kids lip-synced their favorite songs.
characters speak; and lip synching is essential when films are dubbed into other languages. In many musical films, actors sang their own songs beforehand in a recording session and lipsynched during filming. Marni Nixon
sang for Deborah Kerr
in the King and I
, for Audrey Hepburn
in My Fair Lady
, and for Natalie Wood
in West Side Story
. In the 1950s MGM classic Singin' in the Rain
, lip synching is a major plot point.
of making an animated character appear to speak in a prerecorded track of dialogue
. The lip sync technique to make an animated
character appear to speak involves figuring out the timings of the speech (breakdown) as well as the actual animating of the lips/mouth to match the dialogue track. The earliest examples of lip-sync in animation were attempted by Max Fleischer
in his 1926 short My Old Kentucky Home
. The technique continues to this day, with animated films and television
shows such as Shrek
, Lilo & Stitch
, and The Simpsons
using lip-synching to make their artificial characters talk. Lip synching is also used in comedies such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes
and political satire, changing totally or just partially the original wording. It has been used in conjunction with translation of films from one language to another, for example, Spirited Away
. Lip-synching can be a very difficult issue in translating foreign works to a domestic release, as a simple translation of the lines often leaves overrun or underrun of high dialog to mouth movements.
requires that the dialogue is first translated in such a way that the words used can match the lip movements of the actor. This is often hard to achieve if the translation is to stay true to the original dialogue. Elaborate lip-synch of dubbing is also a lengthy and expensive process.
In English-speaking countries, many foreign TV series (especially Japan
ese anime
like Pokémon
) are dubbed for television
broadcast. However, cinematic releases of films tend to come with subtitles instead. The same is true of countries in which the local language is not spoken widely enough to make the expensive dubbing commercially viable (in other words, there is not enough market for it).
However, most non-English-speaking countries with a large enough population dub all foreign films into their national language cinematic release. In such countries, people are accustomed to dubbed films, so less than optimal matches between the lip movements and the voice are not generally noticed . Dubbing is preferred by some because it allows the to viewer focus on the on-screen action, without reading subtitles.
s. Because of the sheer amount of information conveyed through the game, the majority of communication is done through the use of scrolling text. Older RPGs rely solely on text, using inanimate portraits to provide a better sense of who is speaking. Some games make use of voice acting, such as Grandia II
, but due to simple character models, there is no mouth movement to simulate speech. RPGs for hand-held systems are still largely based on text, with the rare use of lip sync and voice files being reserved for full motion video
cutscenes. New RPGs, however, usually use some degree of voice overs. These games are typically for computers or modern console systems and include such games as Mass Effect
and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
. In these full voice over games, lip sync is crucial.
s make extensive use of sound files to create an immersive battle environment. Most games simply played a recorded audio track on cue with some games providing inanimate portraits to accompany the respective voice. StarCraft
used full motion video character portraits with several generic speaking animations that did not synchronize with the lines spoken in the game. The game did, however, make extensive use of recorded speech to convey the game's plot, with the speaking animations providing a good idea of the flow of the conversation. Warcraft III used fully rendered 3D models to animate speech with generic mouth movements, both as character portraits as well as the in-game units. Like the FMV portraits, the 3D models did not synchronize with actual spoken text, while in-game models tended to simulate speech by moving their heads and arms rather than using actual lip synchronization. Similarly, the game Codename Panzers uses camera angles and hand movements to simulate speech, as the characters have no actual mouth movement.
dedicated a development team to lip sync alone, producing the most accurate lip synchronization for games at that time. Since then, games like Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
and Half-Life 2
have made use of coding that dynamically simulates mouth movements to produce sounds as if they were spoken by a live person, resulting in astoundingly life-like characters. Gamers who create their own videos
using character models with no lip movements, such as the helmeted Master Chief
from Halo
, improvise lip movements by moving the characters' arms, bodies and making a bobbing movement with the head (see Red vs. Blue
).
video and audio signals are transported via different facilities (e.g., a geosynchronous satellite
radio link and a landline) that have significantly different delay
times, respectively. In such cases it is necessary to delay the earlier of the two signals electronically.
Lip sync issues have become a serious problem for the television industry world wide. Lip sync problems are not only annoying, but can lead to subconscious viewer stress which in turn leads to viewer dislike of the television program they are watching. Television industry standards organizations have become involved in setting standards for lip sync errors.
' piece at President Obama’s inauguration, which was a recording made two days earlier and mimed by musicians Yo-Yo Ma
, Itzhak Perlman
. The musicians wore earpieces to hear the playback.
Synchronization
Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....
) is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. The term can refer to any of a number of different techniques and processes, in the context of live performances and recordings.
In the case of live concert performances, lip-synching is a commonly-used shortcut, but it can be considered controversial. In film production, lip synching is often part of the post-production phase. Dubbing
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
foreign-language films and making animated characters appear to speak both require elaborate lip-synching. Strategy video game
Strategy video game
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration...
s make extensive use of lip-synced sound files to create an immersive environment.
In music
Though lip-synching, also called miming, can be used to make it appear as though actors have musical ability (e.g., The Partridge FamilyThe Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...
) or to misattribute vocals (e.g. Milli Vanilli
Milli Vanilli
Milli Vanilli was a pop/dance music project formed by Frank Farian in Germany in 1988, visually fronted by Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. The group's debut album achieved international success and earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist on Feb. 21, 1990. Milli Vanilli became one of the most...
), it is more often used by recording artists to create a particular effect, to enable them to perform live dance numbers, or to cover for illness or other deficiencies during live performance. Sometimes lip-synching performances are forced by television for short guest appearances, as it requires less time for rehearsals and hugely simplifies the process of sound mixing. Some artists, however, lip-synch as they are not as confident singing live and lip-synching can eliminate the possibility of hitting any bad notes. The practice of lip synching during live performances is frowned on by many who view it as a crutch only used by lesser talents.
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
, artists usually lip-sync to their songs and often imitate playing musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
s as well. Artists also sometimes move their lips at a faster speed from the 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 for his or her surroundings.
Artists often lip-sync certain portions during strenuous dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
numbers in both live and recorded performances, due to lung capacity being needed for physical activity (both at once would require incredibly trained lungs). For example, artist Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
avoided lip-syncing during his dance and vocal performance of "Wild Wild West" at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards, where it was evident that he was nearly out of breath at the song's conclusion. Artists may also lip-sync in situations in which their back-up bands and sound systems cannot be accommodated, such as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, often shortened to Macy's Day Parade, is an annual parade presented by Macy's. The tradition started in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States along with America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit, and four years younger than...
which features popular singers lip-synching while riding float
Float (parade)
A float is a decorated platform, either built on a vehicle or towed behind one, which is a component of many festive parades, such as those of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the Carnival of Viareggio, the Maltese Carnival, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Key West Fantasy Fest parade, the...
s, or to disguise their lacking of singing ability, particularly in live or non-studio environments. Some singers habitually lip-sync during live performance, both concert and televised. Some artists switch between live singing and lip-synching during the performance of a single song.
Examples
Michael JacksonMichael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
's performance on the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever
Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever
Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever is a 1983 television special produced by Suzanne de Passe for Motown Records, to commemorate Motown's twenty-fifth year of existence. Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever is a 1983 television special produced by Suzanne de Passe for Motown Records, to...
(1983) changed the scope of live stage show. Ian Inglis, author of Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (2006) notes the fact that "Jackson lip-synced 'Billie Jean' is, in itself, not extraordinary, but the fact that it did not change the impact of the performance is extraordinary; whether the performance was live or lip-synced made no difference to the audience." In 1989, a New York Times article claimed that "Bananarama
Bananarama
Bananarama are an English female pop duo who have had success on the pop and dance charts since 1982. Rather than relying on a two part harmony, the duo generally sings in unison, as do their background vocalists. Although there have been line-up changes, the group enjoyed their most popular...
's recent concert at the Palladium", the "first song had a big beat, layered vocal harmonies and a dance move for every line of lyrics", but "the drum kit was untouched until five songs into the set, or that the backup vocals (and, it seemed, some of the lead vocals as well-a hybrid lead performance) were on tape along with the beat". The article also claims that "British band Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...
, ...add vocals and a few keyboard lines to taped backup onstage" although this practice is common place in the genre of electric music.
Chris Nelson of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that by the 1990s, "[a]rtists like Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
and Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson
Janet Damita Jo Jackson is an American recording artist and actress. Known for a series of sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows, television and film roles, she has been a prominent figure in popular culture for over 25 years...
set new standards for showmanship, with concerts that included not only elaborate costumes and precision-timed pyrotechnics but also highly athletic dancing. These effects came at the expense of live singing." Edna Gundersen of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
reported: "The most obvious example is Madonna's Blond Ambition World Tour
Blond Ambition World Tour
The Blond Ambition World Tour was the third concert tour by American singer-songwriter, Madonna. The tour was launched in support of her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, and the soundtrack, I'm Breathless. The tour reached North America, Europe and Asia. It was a highly controversial tour,...
, a visually preoccupied and heavily choreographed spectacle. Madonna lip-syncs the duet Now I'm Following You, while a Dick Tracy character mouths Warren Beatty's recorded vocals. On other songs, background singers plump up her voice, strained by the exertion of non-stop dancing."
Similarly, in reviewing Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation World Tour, Michael MacCambridge of the Austin American-Statesman
Austin American-Statesman
The Austin American-Statesman is the major daily newspaper for Austin, the capital city of Texas. It is an award-winning publication owned by Cox Enterprises. The Newspaper places focus on issues affecting Austin and the Central Texas region....
commented "[i]t seemed unlikely that anyone—even a prized member of the First Family of Soul Music—could dance like she did for 90 minutes and still provide the sort of powerful vocals that the '90s super concerts are expected to achieve."
The music video for Electrasy
Electrasy
Electrasy are a British rock band. Formed in 1994, the band consists of vocalist Alisdair McKinnell, guitarists Nigel Nisbet and Steve Atkins, bassist Alex Meadows and drummer Paul Pridmore...
's 1998 single "Morning Afterglow
Morning Afterglow
"Morning Afterglow" is the second single by British rock band Electrasy. It was released on compact discs in 1998 through MCA Records and reached #19 on the British singles chart.-Track listing:CD1# "Morning Afterglow"...
" featured lead singer Alisdair McKinnell lip-syncing the entire song backwards. This allowed the video to create the effect of an apartment being tidied by 'un-knocking over' bookcases, while the music plays forwards.
In 2004, US pop singer Ashlee Simpson
Ashlee Simpson
Ashlee Nicole Simpson is an American singer and actress. In 2004, she rose to prominence with the success of her number-one debut album Autobiography and the reality series, The Ashlee Simpson Show. In October 2005, following a North American concert tour and a film appearance, Simpson released...
appeared on the live comedy TV show Saturday Night Live, and during her performance, "she was revealed to apparently be lip-synching". According to "her manager-father[,]...his daughter needed the help because acid reflux disease had made her voice hoarse." Her manager stated that "Just like any artist in America, she has a backing track that she pushes so you don’t have to hear her croak through a song on national television." During the incident, vocal parts from a previously performed song began to sound while the singer was "holding her microphone at her waist"; she made "some exaggerated hopping dance moves, then walked off the stage".
During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, CTV news reported that a "nine-year-old Chinese girl's stunning performance at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony has been marred by revelations she was lip-synching". The article states that "Lin Miaoke was lip-synching Friday to a version of "Ode to the Motherland" sung by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was deemed not pretty enough to perform as China's representative".
During Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game pitting the American Football Conference champion Pittsburgh Steelers against the National Football Conference champion Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League champion for the 2008 season. The game was played on February 1, 2009,...
, "Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer Kate Hudson is an American recording artist, actress and spokesperson. She came to prominence in 2004 as one of the finalists on the third season of American Idol coming in seventh place...
's flawless performance of the national anthem" was "lip-synched ...to a previously recorded track, and apparently so did Faith Hill
Faith Hill
Faith Hill is an American country singer. She is known both for her commercial success and her marriage to fellow country star Tim McGraw. Hill has sold more than 40 million records worldwide and accumulated eight number-one singles and three number-one albums on the U.S...
who performed before her". The singers lip-synched "...at the request of Rickey Minor
Rickey Minor
Rickey Minor is a music director, composer and music producer, now best known as musical director and bandleader for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno after Kevin Eubanks left. Minor was born in Monroe, Louisiana to parents Cole and Goldie Minor and was raised in South Central Los Angeles, CA...
, the pregame show producer", who argued that "There's too many variables to go live." Subsequent Super Bowl national anthems were performed live.
On the 2009 finals of The X Factor
The X Factor (UK)
The X Factor is a British television music competition to find new singing talent. Created by Simon Cowell, it began in September 2004 and is contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. It is the originator of the international X Factor franchise. The seven series of the show to date...
, Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Ann Cole is an English pop and R&B recording artist, songwriter, dancer, actress and model. She rose to fame in late 2002 when she auditioned for the reality television show Popstars: The Rivals on ITV. The programme announced that Cole had won a place as a member of the girl group, Girls...
partly mimed one of her new songs. In 2009, US pop singer Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
was " 'extremely upset' over the savaging she has received after lip-synching at her Australian shows".
Teenage viral video
Viral video
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
star Keenan Cahill
Keenan Cahill
Keenan Cahill is a teenager from Elmhurst, Illinois whose lip-syncing of popular songs has brought his videos on YouTube to some of the most viewed online videos. Guest artists on his channel have included rapper 50 Cent in November 2010, David Guetta in January 2011, and Jersey Shore's Paul...
lip-syncs popular songs on his YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
channel. His popularity has increased as he included guests such as rapper 50 Cent
50 Cent
Curtis James Jackson III , better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin and The Massacre . Get Rich or Die Tryin has been certified eight times platinum by...
in November 2010 and David Guetta
David Guetta
Pierre David Guetta , known professionally as David Guetta , is a French house music producer and DJ. Originally a DJ at nightclubs during the 1980s and 1990s, he co-founded Gum Productions and released his first album, Just a Little More Love, in 2002. Later, he released Guetta Blaster and Pop Life...
in January 2011, sending him to be one of the most popular channels on YouTube in January 2011.
Contests and game shows
In 1981 Wm. Randy Wood started lip sync contests at the Underground Nightclub in Seattle, WashingtonSeattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
to attract customers. The contests were so popular he took the contests nationwide. By 1984 he had contests running in over 20 cities and after submitting a show proposal went to work for Dick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions
Dick Clark Productions is an entertainment production company founded by entertainer Dick Clark...
as consulting producer for the TV series Puttin' on the Hits
Puttin' On the Hits
Puttin' on the Hits was an American syndicated music/variety competition show hosted by Allen Fawcett. The show featured amateur acts lip-synching to popular songs. The show aired on weekends from 1984 through 1988....
. The show received an impressive 9.0 rating the first season and was nominated twice for the Daytime Emmy Awards. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, this hobby
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
reached its peak during the 1980s, when several game shows, such as Puttin' on the Hits
Puttin' On the Hits
Puttin' on the Hits was an American syndicated music/variety competition show hosted by Allen Fawcett. The show featured amateur acts lip-synching to popular songs. The show aired on weekends from 1984 through 1988....
and Lip Service
Lip Service (game show)
Lip Service is a game show that aired on MTV from February 22, 1992 to January 3, 1993 and again from May 10, 1993 to December 17, 1994. It was hosted originally by Jay Mohr, who was followed in the position by John Ales...
, were created. The Family Channel had a Saturday morning show called Great Pretenders where kids lip-synced their favorite songs.
In films
In film production, lip synching is often part of the post-production phase. Most film today contains scenes where the dialogue has been re-recorded afterwards; lip-synching is the technique used when animatedAnimation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
characters speak; and lip synching is essential when films are dubbed into other languages. In many musical films, actors sang their own songs beforehand in a recording session and lipsynched during filming. Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon
Marni Nixon is an American soprano and playback singer for featured actresses in movie musicals. She has also spent much of her career performing in concerts with major symphony orchestras around the world and in operas and musicals throughout the United States.-Biography:Born Margaret Nixon...
sang for Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
in the King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
, for Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
in My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, and for Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
in West Side Story
West Side Story (film)
West Side Story is a 1961 musical film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was adapted from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno,...
. In the 1950s MGM classic Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
, lip synching is a major plot point.
ADR
Automated dialogue replacement, also known as "ADR" or "looping," is a film sound technique involving the re-recording of dialogue after photography. Sometimes actors lip-synch during filming and sound is added later to reduce costs.Animation
Another manifestation of lip synching is the artArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
of making an animated character appear to speak in a prerecorded track of dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
. The lip sync technique to make an animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
character appear to speak involves figuring out the timings of the speech (breakdown) as well as the actual animating of the lips/mouth to match the dialogue track. The earliest examples of lip-sync in animation were attempted by Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...
in his 1926 short My Old Kentucky Home
My Old Kentucky Home (film)
My Old Kentucky Home is a short animation film originally released on 13 April 1926, by Max and Dave Fleischer of Fleischer Studios as one of the Song Car-Tunes series...
. The technique continues to this day, with animated films and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
shows such as Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...
, Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch
This article is about the movie. For the television series, see Lilo & Stitch: The Series.Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released on June 21, 2002...
, and The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
using lip-synching to make their artificial characters talk. Lip synching is also used in comedies such as This Hour Has 22 Minutes
This Hour Has 22 Minutes
This Hour Has 22 Minutes is a weekly Canadian television comedy that airs on CBC Television. Launched in 1993 during Canada's 35th general election, the show focuses on Canadian politics, combining news parody, sketch comedy and satirical editorials...
and political satire, changing totally or just partially the original wording. It has been used in conjunction with translation of films from one language to another, for example, Spirited Away
Spirited Away
is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba,...
. Lip-synching can be a very difficult issue in translating foreign works to a domestic release, as a simple translation of the lines often leaves overrun or underrun of high dialog to mouth movements.
Language dubbing
Quality film dubbingDubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
requires that the dialogue is first translated in such a way that the words used can match the lip movements of the actor. This is often hard to achieve if the translation is to stay true to the original dialogue. Elaborate lip-synch of dubbing is also a lengthy and expensive process.
In English-speaking countries, many foreign TV series (especially Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
like Pokémon
Pokémon (anime)
, abbreviated from , is a children's TV anime series, which has since been adapted for the North and South American, Australian and European television markets...
) are dubbed for television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
broadcast. However, cinematic releases of films tend to come with subtitles instead. The same is true of countries in which the local language is not spoken widely enough to make the expensive dubbing commercially viable (in other words, there is not enough market for it).
However, most non-English-speaking countries with a large enough population dub all foreign films into their national language cinematic release. In such countries, people are accustomed to dubbed films, so less than optimal matches between the lip movements and the voice are not generally noticed . Dubbing is preferred by some because it allows the to viewer focus on the on-screen action, without reading subtitles.
In video games
Early video games did not use any voice sounds, due to technical limitations. In the 1970s and early 1980s, most video games used simple electronic sounds such as bleeps and simulated explosion sounds. At most, these games featured some generic jaw or mouth movement to convey a communication process in addition to text. However, as games become more advanced in the 1990s and 2000s, lip sync and voice acting has become a major focus of many games.Role-playing games
Lip sync is a minor focus in role-playing video gameRole-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
s. Because of the sheer amount of information conveyed through the game, the majority of communication is done through the use of scrolling text. Older RPGs rely solely on text, using inanimate portraits to provide a better sense of who is speaking. Some games make use of voice acting, such as Grandia II
Grandia II
is a role-playing video game developed by Game Arts originally for the Dreamcast console as part of their Grandia series. Initially released in Japan in August 2000 by Sega, the game was later made available in English for North America the following December, and in Europe in February 2001, with...
, but due to simple character models, there is no mouth movement to simulate speech. RPGs for hand-held systems are still largely based on text, with the rare use of lip sync and voice files being reserved for full motion video
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
cutscenes. New RPGs, however, usually use some degree of voice overs. These games are typically for computers or modern console systems and include such games as Mass Effect
Mass Effect
Mass Effect is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows by Demiurge Studios. The Xbox 360 version was released worldwide in November 2007 published by Microsoft Game Studios...
and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games...
. In these full voice over games, lip sync is crucial.
Strategy games
Unlike RPGs, strategy video gameStrategy video game
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration...
s make extensive use of sound files to create an immersive battle environment. Most games simply played a recorded audio track on cue with some games providing inanimate portraits to accompany the respective voice. StarCraft
StarCraft
StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling...
used full motion video character portraits with several generic speaking animations that did not synchronize with the lines spoken in the game. The game did, however, make extensive use of recorded speech to convey the game's plot, with the speaking animations providing a good idea of the flow of the conversation. Warcraft III used fully rendered 3D models to animate speech with generic mouth movements, both as character portraits as well as the in-game units. Like the FMV portraits, the 3D models did not synchronize with actual spoken text, while in-game models tended to simulate speech by moving their heads and arms rather than using actual lip synchronization. Similarly, the game Codename Panzers uses camera angles and hand movements to simulate speech, as the characters have no actual mouth movement.
First-person shooters
FPS is a genre that generally places much more emphasis on graphical display, mainly due to the camera almost always being very close to character models. Due to increasingly detailed character models requiring animation, FPS developers assign many resources to create realistic lip synchronization with the many lines of speech used in most FPS games. Early 3D models used basic up-and-down jaw movements to simulate speech. As technology progressed, mouth movements began to closely resemble real human speech movements. Medal of Honor: FrontlineMedal of Honor: Frontline
-External links:*...
dedicated a development team to lip sync alone, producing the most accurate lip synchronization for games at that time. Since then, games like Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is a first-person shooter computer game the story of which takes place during the Pacific War. It is the 7th installment of the Medal of Honor series.- Plot :...
and Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 , the sequel to Half-Life, is a first-person shooter video game and a signature title in the Half-Life series. It is singleplayer, story-driven, science fiction, and linear...
have made use of coding that dynamically simulates mouth movements to produce sounds as if they were spoken by a live person, resulting in astoundingly life-like characters. Gamers who create their own videos
Machinima
Machinima is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation...
using character models with no lip movements, such as the helmeted Master Chief
Master Chief (Halo)
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a fictional character and protagonist of the Halo fictional universe, created by Bungie. Master Chief is a player character in the trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter video games Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 and will appear in the...
from Halo
Halo (video game series)
Halo is a multi-million dollar science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant...
, improvise lip movements by moving the characters' arms, bodies and making a bobbing movement with the head (see Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a set of related comic science fiction video series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD...
).
Television transmission synchronization
An example of a lip synchronization problem, also known as lip sync error is the case in which televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
video and audio signals are transported via different facilities (e.g., a geosynchronous satellite
Geosynchronous satellite
A geosynchronous Satellite is a satellite whose orbit on the Earth repeats regularly over points on the Earth over time. If such a satellite's orbit lies over the equator, the orbit is circular and its angular velocity is the same as the earth's, then it is called a geostationary satellite...
radio link and a landline) that have significantly different delay
Propagation delay
Propagation delay is a technical term that can have a different meaning depending on the context. It can relate to networking, electronics or physics...
times, respectively. In such cases it is necessary to delay the earlier of the two signals electronically.
Lip sync issues have become a serious problem for the television industry world wide. Lip sync problems are not only annoying, but can lead to subconscious viewer stress which in turn leads to viewer dislike of the television program they are watching. Television industry standards organizations have become involved in setting standards for lip sync errors.
Miming
The miming of the playing of a musical instrument is equivalent of lip-synching. A notable example of miming includes John WilliamsJohn Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
' piece at President Obama’s inauguration, which was a recording made two days earlier and mimed by musicians Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
, Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...
. The musicians wore earpieces to hear the playback.
See also
- Automated Dialogue Replacement
- Audio synchronizerAudio synchronizerAn audio synchronizer is a variable audio delay used to correct or maintain audio video sync or timing also known as lip sync error. See for example the specification for audio to video timing given in ATSC Document IS-191...
- Human videoHuman videoA human video is a form of theater combining music, Modern Dance and drama, along with interpretive dance, American Sign Language, pantomime, and classic mime...
, a style of dance sometimes referred to as a "lip sync" - Lip dubLip dubA lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. There is...
- Lypsinka
- Playback singing
- Presentation time stamp