1. JasonSulit
A2 Media
Lip Sync Filming
For this task I had to explore the ways in which we could Lip Sync to a song. Lip Syncing is a
common convention that is used in various performance based music videos. Lip Syncing is
used in order to create a clean-cut and an aesthetic appearance to a video. The sound is
imported in post production, so therefore the sound is non-diegetic as the singer is not singing
to the song.
For this Media A2 Course I will need to learn and experiment with lip syncing as it will be an
important use for my own music video. In our group there were 3 people; Akshay, Sam and me.
We all participated in the filming and performing of this lip sync. For my Lip Sync Video, I and
my group decided to work with ‘Happy’ by Pharrell, the reason we chose this is because the
lyrics are very catchy making the words easy to remember. This was ideal as we would be able
to concentrate with our performance and lip syncing instead of trying to learn the lyrics
As the music requires performance, the lip sync was quite difficult to time correctly, you will
notice that some words did not sync properly also the shots that we took were either mid shots
to long shots, consequently it is hard to notice the lip sync in most shots. This defeated the
purpose of this task however it was still beneficial as we learned from our mistakes that
occurred in this music video.
We also had some concerns with mise en scene. There were issues with our body language and
expressions, for instance you will notice that in the first cut there is a lack of enthusiasm hence
did not fit the energetic vibe of the song. There was also a part in the second cut where Sam we
could not see his lip sync due to his arm blocking the camera shot. As well as this our clothing
did not fulfill the Neo Soul genre in which this song is categorized, so therefore, I and my group
did not seem to have fulfilled the codes and conventions.
However, it was not all bad, the editing and the organisation of the footage were what I found
successful in this music video. I also like the different cut aways in between each of the
catwalks, in particular the catwalk scene as that is a common convention in music videos where
the artist would directly approach the camera as if they were going towards the audience
directly looking at them, doing this enables artists to show confidence and communicate non-
verbally. Although there was lack of movement and camera angles used, we edited the shots to
make it seem like there is movement, for instance the pan shot of Akshay inside a bush.
Below is our music video lip sync for the song “Happy” by Pharrell:
