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Lip-sync or Lip-synch (short for lip synchronization) is a technical term for matching lip movements with voice. The term refers both to a technique often used during musical performances and the production of film and TV programmes, and to the problem of maintaining video and audio signals synchronized during post-production and transmission. It is also used to match lip movements of animated characters (including computer facial animation). The British term for lip synching songs is miming.

Lip synching songs

Professional artists usually lip sync while recording music videos. The technique of recording video clips consists of recording a film to pre-recorded music, so artists have to lip-sync to their songs (and often imitate playing musical instruments as well). Regarding new techniques in recording music videos, artists sometimes move their lips to music playing at different speed, or even backwards, to make unusual effects in the final clip.

Some singers lip sync songs on what is expected to be a live performance, and this is looked upon with disdain, as a live performance is more highly regarded. Major recording artists such as Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and Mariah Carey are well known for some lip synching when making televised performances, preferring instead to mime the words of the recording, or miming to a new recorded version of the song to give it the appearance of a live performance. In some cases, some singers will actually sing live, with only the music and backing vocals being pre-recorded. This is generally more appreciated than a totally mimed performance. A performer may also have a live band in the background, while the pre-recorded vocals play over the top making the song sound different and 'live'.

Unlike recording in a studio where an artist can do multiple takes to ensure they hit the correct notes, a live performance exposes an artist in the raw. The artist has one chance to hit or miss while performing the song live in front of an audience. Only a confident artist will perform live on a regular basis. Generally, artists choose to lip synch because they do not have a strong voice and there would be a noticeable difference than what the public is used to hearing on a recording, or the artist has a capable voice but is afraid of hitting incorrect notes while performing the song.

Sometimes artists lip sync in public concerts as well, especially when doing physically straining dance numbers. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York often features popular singers on floats who lip sync. This practice was criticized by the general public, but still done because the floats were too small to accommodate a singer's back-up band and sound system. The technique can be used to misattribute vocals. The 1990 Milli Vanilli scandal and Ashlee Simpson's 2004 Saturday Night Live appearance are some notable cases.

Some artists switch between singing live and lip synching while performing a song. This is done because the song may require the vocalist to hit a high or low note where the singer may otherwise come "out of tune" or "off key". Once the difficult portion of the song has been mimed, they may continue to lip synch the rest of the performance or start singing live again. Other techniques used is to play a backing track of the singers own voice in the background and the singer contributes live vocals as well. Sometimes when this is done, the live vocals are not heard as much as the backing track. This is done by many pop and rock performers. Roger Waters, on his tours In the Flesh and The Dark Side of the Moon Live is one prominent example.

Likewise, it is a common occurrence to groups to lip sync non-lead vocal parts, or shared parts. This ensures that harmonies are kept, as well as to ensure that fact that one member does not overpower the others while singing a communal part. Some people slam this practice, as they believe it destroys the fact that the people are within a group, instead, believing the performance to be multiple lead singers singing at different times.

Alternatively, there are many acts who are not considered lip synchers and have never mimed songs, unless appearing on a show where only lip synching is featured. These acts who shun lip synching include Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Kylie Minogue, Billy Joel, Elton John, Bon Jovi, Tina Turner, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morisette, and Alicia Keys to name just a few.

In cases where only lip synching is featured (like short guest appearances in some TV shows), such artists often include kind of Easter eggs in their lip synched performances, like swapping instruments between band members, or even "playing" them in ways which clearly shows that it is not a live performance. One example is a performance of Polish group Kanał Audytywny in Kuba Wojewódzki's talk-show (video), when the trumpeter held his trumpet backwards (i.e. with the mouthpiece and bell in opposite positions), and also all band members wore helmets with big labels reading PLAYBACK, a word which is commonly used to call lip synched performances in Poland. Additionally, on at least one occasion, John Lennon of The Beatles would intenionally give away the fact that he (in addition to the other Beatles) was miming, by scratching his face, licking his lips, miming incorrect words, and breaking into dance while "playing." (video)

Lip synching songs is also used as a form of musical pantomime, in which a performer moves his/her lips to the words of a recording done by someone else, creating the illusion of the performer singing in the recorded singer's voice. Lip synching has long been a hallmark of drag queens (and more recently drag kings). For some this is a popular hobby, which in the United States reached its greatest popularity in the 1980s, hitting its peak with such television game shows as Puttin' On The Hits and Lip Service.

Lip synching 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 animated characters speak, and lip synching is essential when films are dubbed into other languages.

ADR

Automated dialogue replacement (ADR) is a film sound technique involving the re-recording of dialogue after photography. It is called post-synchronisation (post-sync) in the UK.

Animation

The other is the art of making a character appear to speak in a pre-recorded 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.

Language dubbing

Quality film dubbing requires that the dialogue is first translated is such a way that the words used can match the lip movements of the actor. However, this is often impossible to achieve if you want the translation to stay true to the original dialogue. Very good lip synch of dubbing is also a very lengthy and expensive process.

As an unusually extreme reaction to poorly done dubbing, Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan, issued a ban on lip synching in his country in August 2005.

Lip synching video games

Early video games did not feature prominent use of voice, mainly being text-based. At most, games featured some generic jaw or mouth movement to convey a communication process in addition to text. However, as games become more advanced, 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 games. Because of the sheer amount of information conveyed through the game, the majority of communication is done through the use of scrolling text. Most RPGs rely solely on text, while some games display inanimate portraits to provide a better sense of who is speaking. Some games make use of some voice acting, such as Grandia II, but due to simple character models, there is no mouth movement to simulate speech. RPGs are still largely based on text, with the rare use of lip sync and voice files being reserved for full motion video cutscenes. Some newer RPGs, however, use full voice overs. These games are typically for computers or next gen systems - such as the X-box 360 - and include such games as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. In these full voice over games, lip sync is crucial.

Strategy games

Unlike RPGs, strategy games 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 synchronise 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 synchronise with actual spoken text, while in-game models tended to simulate speech by moving their heads and arms rather than using actual lip synchronisation. 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

Out of all the gaming genres, first-person shooters have placed the most emphasis on lip sync. Due to increasingly detailed character models requiring animation, game developers assign many resources to create realistic lip synchronisation 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: Frontline dedicated a development team to lip sync alone, producing the most accurate lip synchronisation for games. 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).

Transmission synchronization

An example of a lip synchronization problem is the case in which television 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 to allow for the difference in propagation times.

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. See the report "Effects of Audio-Video Asynchrony on Viewer's Memory, Evaluation of Content and Detection Ability" by Reeves and Voelker (a non-copyrighted PDF is available at http://www.pixelinstruments.tv/5ProfesArticles/Reeves%20and%20Voelker%20Paper.pdf). Television industry standards organizations have become involved in setting standards for lip sync errors. See for example ATSC Document IS-191 (http://www.atsc.org/standards/is_191.pdf).

Lip synching in the headlines

  • In 2004, singer Ashlee Simpson appeared on Saturday Night Live in a promotional visit. She was scheduled to sing two songs from her album Autobiography. However, when beginning to sing the album's title track, another song began playing in the background, and it was revealed that she was either lip-synching or using a vocal backing track.

Singers who have been caught lip-synching

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The list below does not include lip-synching in music videos, as almost every music video is lip-synched. Only the performances when the singer is expected by the audience to sing live, like concerts, or TV shows, are listed. NOTE: On shows like the UK's Top of the Pops and other European talk shows and lottery shows, artists lipsynch more often then sing live, even artists who normally sing live.

  • ABBA lip synched in their movie album.
  • Atomic Kitten, after they release their single Ladies Night which is the 2003 version of Kool and The Gang's 1979 hit Ladies Night, they performed the song everywhere including Top of the Pops, CD:UK, The Oude Jaarsloterij Show and Children's TV Marathon on BBC. On the Children's TV Marathon performance they sang live for just 6 seconds. They even lip-synched on their Greatest Hits Tour.
  • Anastacia, in a performance on Top of the Pops in the UK
  • Ashlee Simpson, in the internationally infamous performance on Saturday Night Live in 2004 when her backing track malfunctioned.
  • Britney Spears, Tends to dance while performing, and seems to always lip sync. A Spears' live performance is absolutely rare.
  • Celine Dion, who rarely lip syncs, tends to always lip sync on her song That's the way it is.
  • Christina Aguilera, a performance of "Get Mine, Get Yours" on her 2003 Stripped Tour. She also lip synched while performing 'Christmas Time' on her 2000 ABC Channel Christmas Special (Released as "My Reflection" DVD). Christina, however, often tends to sing live.
  • Dannii Minogue, at Top of the Pops in the UK
  • Eminem, during a performance of his song "Mosh" on Mad TV he did it during the chorus
  • Enrique Iglesias, during several concerts in Poland
  • Fergie (Stacy Ferguson) during the Video Music Awards pre-show, Teen Choice Awards 2006 and Fashion Rocks 2006 she lip-synched the chorus part of "London Bridge". She has also lip-synched the chorus part of "London Bridge" on two different episodes of TRL.
  • Geri Halliwell, Performing 'It's Raining Men' at the National Lottery 2001, another performer who has never sung live.
  • Hilary Duff performing "Come Clean" at MTV's New Year's Bash 2004 and "Beat of My Heart" at the American Music Awards in 2005. Another artist who has rarely performed live.
  • Jessica Simpson, during her Irresistible (album) album era. She lip-synched a TRL performance and many performances overseas. The lip-sych of her song, Irresistible (song) was obvious when she sang live on another MTV performance a couple months later and she dramatically sounded different than when she sang or didn't sing on TRL. Simpson, however, does perform live often.
  • Jennifer Lopez, at Wetten Dass during the performance of her single "Get Right" in promotion of her album, Rebirth, and "Ain't It Funny" several times on promotion. Lopez rarely sings live, preferring to lip synch.
  • Kelly Osbourne, at Top of the Pops and various other television shows while promoting her album Sleeping in the Nothing.
  • Kylie Minogue, at few TV-Shows, where other artists normally also don't perform live. Although TV miming, Kylie always performs live during her own shows (as she declares herself proud of it on her 'Feel The Fever' documentary, released as an extra to 'KylieFever 2002' DVD).
  • Lara McAllen or Angel City, performing 'Sunrise' on CD:UK
  • Lindsay Lohan, while performing on Good Morning America During "Rumors", Lindsay's microphone was no where near her mouth during the first line of the bridge and she made a face realizing she messed up. Her reps insisted she sung live.
  • Janet Jackson, Tends to dance while performing, and lip synchs frequently. Has rarely sung live.
  • Madonna, has started to lip synch on some performances over the last few years. In the earlier part of her career in the 1980's and early to mid-1990's, she mostly sang live.
  • Mariah Carey, lip synchs frequently on televised performances. On occasion will lip synch and sing live during the same performance.
  • Michael Jackson, during MTV Video Music Award 1995 performing a medley and the song Dangerous. Jackson occasionally lipsynchs, especially during his last tour, but has mostly sung live throughout his entire career.
  • Milli Vanilli, during a live performance recorded by MTV at the Lake Compounce theme park in Connecticut in 1990. It was later revealed they did not sing vocals on their album. Court rulings later stated that purchasers of their album be given a partial refund from their record company.
  • Missy Elliott, during a performance of "Lady Marmalade" at the 2002 Grammy Awards
  • Luciano Pavarotti in a famous outdoor opera concert in Italy in the 1990s
  • Raven-Symoné at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 2004
  • Victoria Beckham, during her performance at World Idol, an Idol spinoff show
  • The Spice Girls, during an appearance on Noel's House Party (BBC-UK) where Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) failed to open her mouth during some of her lines.
  • The Pussycat Dolls, while performing their hit Buttons on T4 (Channel 4) and CD:USA. Lead singer Nicole sang live, but the rest of the group were lip-synching the song.
  • Sarah Connor on several TV appearances including TRL Germany, her appearances at The Dome, and many others. There was one playbacked performance of her 2003 hit "Just One Last Dance" at the Comet Awards where her mouth was away from the mic when she was stil "singing". She also lipsynched "I Just Started Being Bad" on a TV-Total event and it was evident when her mouth wasn't moving during a part of the song and when her microphone was away from her mouth.
  • Jentina during two performances of Bad Ass Strippa

See also

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