Stop motion Lip-Syncing

[Antonio Campos]

I am doing a commercial shooting with a still digital Canon SLR. I am trying to sync up the actress' lips with the song. Any suggestion on how best to do it? Is it simply to just try to capture every motion of the girl's lips as she sounds out the words (it's for only a few lines)?

 

Thanks a lot

[Alessandro Machi]

I am doing a commercial shooting with a still digital Canon SLR. I am trying to sync up the actress' lips with the song. Any suggestion on how best to do it? Is it simply to just try to capture every motion of the girl's lips as she sounds out the words (it's for only a few lines)?

 

Thanks a lot

 

Is your goal to have 30 individual frames per second, or a more realistic 5-10? If you commit to an exact number, lets say 5 frames per second, I would set the camera to trip 1/6 of a second farther along each time.

 

The song starts at zero, and in 1/6th of a second increments, you trip the camera. Return the CD to the beginning and shoot the next shot at 1/3 of second. Return the CD to zeor and take the next picture at 1/2 second... and so on.... the mathematical progression would be 1/6th, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 5/6, 1, and so on.

 

For this technique to work, the peformer has to be able to repeat their performance (the way a dancer would) in a very similar manner for each take, and you have to be confident that you can accurately trip the camera in 1/6th of a second increments. Also, have a distinct sound at the beginning of the CD so everyone knows the music has just started and can start their timings.

 

There are probably other ways to do what you want as well. I've heard that there are new cameras that refresh at very fast rates, and that might be the easiest method of all. And of course, is it possible that an actual SLR camera with fast refresh might also be an option?

[Bob Hayes]

Get the lyrics of the song and type them out. Have the talent lip sync the song in close up to a low end video camera. Load it into computer and using you time line freeze frame and mark where you want the stops. Take frame grabs of each moment number them and print them out. Listen to the words at the mark and then put the corresponding number and mark next to the part of the word in the lyric. Then have her sing the small parts of the song and try to hit that moment in the word. You can also have you talent just make the facial expression in the freeze frame or sing the word.

[Robert Goodrich]

For Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video, and the Talking Heads' Road to Nowhere, they shot footage of the perfomer's face lip-syncing to the song. On set, they played-back the footage frame by frame (or every 2 or three frames) on a monitor placed in front of the performer. They simply had to mimic the facial expression and mouth shape on the screen.

[Stuart McCammon]

For Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video, and the Talking Heads' Road to Nowhere, they shot footage of the perfomer's face lip-syncing to the song. On set, they played-back the footage frame by frame (or every 2 or three frames) on a monitor placed in front of the performer. They simply had to mimic the facial expression and mouth shape on the screen.

 

That seems like the most workable solution)