Britney Lip Syncs

To practice our abilities to lip sync and edit together a music video, we created our own. We made two videos practicing these techniques. The First was: "IF YOU WANNA BE MY LOVER" by the Spice Girls. We took full advantage of our surroundings for this video, as our brief was "to create a video with accurate lip sync but also that follows the conventions of music videos". This being lots of different sets, mise-en-scene and costume. This was also an opportunity to use the updated versions of Final Cut Pro during editing.

The sets and locations we used for our music video included, a stairwell, bathroom, a graveyard, a beach babe cut out, and an alley with doodles. All these locations fitted well with the conventions of a pop music video, as they were kooky and unusual, they also added humor to our video and meant that during editing we would have a lot of different shots to cut to and from.

When editing the footage together there were some issues with the lip syncing as some parts were out of time to the original song, there were also clips we couldn't use due to performers laughing. You'll also notice during the video one of the performers reading lyrics off of a phone. This is due to not everyone knowing all the lyrics fully, and performers having to improvise during sections of the songs where they didn't know the words. This was so that filming wasn't wasted, as the extra footage from improvisation could be edited in between sections of the songs where performers struggled to lip sync. An example of this is Grainne dancing in the "graveyard" set and the group dancing on the 'glass' bridge. In order to improve on our lip syncing we need to learn the song more thoroughly rather than just having a very brief knowledge of the song, therefore we are more likely to be singing in time to the original track. 

In terms of editing I think it went very well and followed the brief and conventions of a Pop song. We had multiple sets that cut across each other and tried to cut shots to the beat, we also attempted match-on-action mid sentences, so that one performer would begin to sing a line, and another would finish it, this was so that audiences were kept entertained by the abrupt shots but also the different locations and the change in characters singing, as the same location and long scenes aren't typically associated with music videos and tend to be tedious and boring. The match-on-action worked really well and we even managed to cut our feet stomping to the beat of the song which was really effective. However I do think I could have cut much quicker if I had had more usable shots, rather than of us all laughing, this will be something I need to practice for my final piece, especially if I choose to do a pop song as they are typically performance based so lip syncing will need to be perfect, there will also need to a variety of shots and it is essential that they are quickly cut and fit to the beat. I also took the opportunity to practice a technique typically used in Pop songs, using a split screen, to make the video more entertaining as there is much more going on and for audiences to see, it also injects variety into our video, as all our shots were still mid shots, having split screens adds an element of fun and madness to these shots.

Our second attempt at Lip Syncing was Adele's song "ROLLING IN THE DEEP" for this we made sure everyone knew the lyrics, and for sections where performers were unaware of the lyrics we improvised so that these clips could be used to cut across, and for shots where performers are stood quite close to the camera e.g. Extreme close ups, the lyrics were held up so that performers could read off the sheet without looking unprepared. The lip syncing was much more believable this time as the majority is in time to the original track, this meant we had more variety of shots when editing together during the editing process. However for this practical task we had a lot less variety of locations so used a range of outdoor locations, however our shot types were much more varied compared to our first video, as we had a mix of long shots, mid shots, extreme close ups, angles and even moving and panning shot.

I started off the video with a split screen using four different shots of performers stomping, clapping and nodding to the beat. The shots also come on one after the other. This was very effective as all shots were in time to the beat of the original track, but the multiple shots in the first 5 seconds of the song offer the audience a variety of entertaining shots and images before the song has even begun. I also added effects to the individual clips so they stood out. I then cut between two different performers, one being an ECU and the other a MS, this offers a drastic change in perspective making the video more entertaining to watch, rather than seeing multiple shots filmed from the same distance. The two clips also had individual filters added to them so they could stand out, and match on action was used and the clips were edited to the beat. When the beat picks up a third performer is introduced using the same ECU and one of the original performers moves to a sitting down position as the camera zooms out. I then cut across these three different clips, creating quicker and quicker cuts as the tempo increases. The camera zooms out to reveal all three performers in time for the chorus. The shots then cut between each other, incorporating different angles of all three performers sat down, panning shots are also used to intensify the performance and keep audiences entertained.