Research - Reflecting new skills (Lip sync tutorial)

I first started with a lip sync tutorial, which included different angled footage of a rock band. The task was to compile the footage so that the movements and the lip-syncing are at the same time to the original sound track. I used Final Cut Pro to do this. I imported the sound track as my base, and started looking at the footage of the individual instrument players and different angles of the band as a whole. I inserted all of the footage and muted the video sound as I am only using the sound track as the main guide for editing. The process is called base track editing. I learnt how to mark using the key ‘m’ to the beat, counting in beats of four. I set the screen to analogue, so I could monitor the time and mark correctly, when the singer sang a word. This word would then be the focus point in order to match up the video to the song.

   The main purpose of this was so that I could cut the footage and separate them so that they flow along with the music and change whenever the count of four stops. An example would be when the back up singer sings his lyrics; I cut out all the other footage so it is just him singing with the camera on him. This is so the video looks professional, and when the lead sings his next vocals, the camera can then focus on him etc. This technique is also good for matching up instrument solos to the music so that the sound can reference to what is going on screen.

   This skill was easy to develop as time went on, the reason being that once you have practised marking and match up correctly, it was easy to duplicate. However, I found it difficult to mark at the same point, being as the videos were in different time so the number of videos you have to edit, the more lip syncing there is to do. This was definitely the hardest part of learning to lip sync in Final Cut Pro.

   After this, I now encountered on filming and editing my own lip sync video. The music I was given was ‘Le Freak’ a commonly heard 1970s disco track by ‘Chic’. This was difficult, as my group did not film continuously for a set amount of time in different angles like the tutorial. This means that we had to do linear editing multiple times instead of lip-syncing a set of e.g. six videos of footage needed for base track editing. We still needed to use the marking technique, only we had to do it more than the average and in different times, marking it to the word and not merely just synchronizing the video to the sound in general. This made editing far much harder, but this was only a practise, so it was still a learning curb to set an example for next time. With all the extra editing, the final edit came out quite well, even though it did not flow as well as if we did base track editing, the movements and lip syncing were in time and was as smooth as possible.