Below is my first attempt at editing together a lip sync, as well as some experimentation with green screen editing.
Lip sync is an important skill to develop before making a music video as it presents the star image as a convincing performer and, if done well, will help sustain the viewer’s immersion in the video. To prepare for this in advance it can be helpful to advise that your performer does not over-enunciate the lyrics to the extent of appearing unnatural, this is another reason why it is important to choose a performer who visually matches the grain of the voice you are syncing to.
When it comes to editing the footage in Premiere Pro it’s helpful to note specific tools that are provided in the program to aid you in the process of lip syncing. Most notably, the marker tool allows you to add a tag/marker to a certain point in the footage and line this up with other markers in the timeline, as well as this it can be helpful to compare the audio waves of both the music track and video so as to match them as closely as possible.
In reflection, my video definitely isn’t perfect and with more time could be refined and much improved, example areas for improvement are;
- The lip sync isn’t consistently successful for every shot, whilst most work fine there are a couple examples where the sync is very slightly off and this stands out against the more successful clips.
- The green screen editing isn’t very clean as you can see a green outline still around some shots, as well as areas being cut out that shouldn’t be, hopefully with more practice this is something I can improve on.
- The transitions aren’t consistent and sometimes the effect will cut the clip short or last too long.
- Due to the moving cameras or the performers moving too much, sometimes they will be cropped unnaturally on the sides
However, despite these flaws, being able to identify them is still helpful and allows me to make improvement in future tasks. After this first practice with lip sync I have gained valuable experience and have a much better idea of how to work with the program and equipment than before.