plan ahead

dobro

dobro

Well-known member
If I ever, ever do a video that has me lip synching over a track I've recorded previously, just shoot me.

It'll all work out.
 
Really? It's been going on since they invented television. I bet every single "big" band has done it at some time. Not saying you have to like it, but it's very common among all styles of music, not just disposable pop stars.
 
I hated MTV the first time I saw it. Mostly badly designed scenarios and vignettes that add nothing to the music. And then there's the singer, wandering through the set, obviously NOT singing the song. Damn. End bad art now.
 
dobro said:
I hated MTV the first time I saw it. Mostly badly designed scenarios and vignettes that add nothing to the music. And then there's the singer, wandering through the set, obviously NOT singing the song. Damn. End bad art now.
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Oh, that's a different thing. I agree, and I've always hated the idea of videos. I don't care if it's your song, don't tell me how it's supposed to "look" to me. Your music should allow me to have my own visual idea of what the song portrays to me. But, as far as a TV performance of a tune, for sure I'd prefer real live playing, but I can live with hearing the studio version while the artist pretends to sing it. That doesn't bother me so much.
 
But it's PRETENCE, RAMI. It's fake. You can always see the joins. My favorite version of it is when the recorded vocal is singing its ass off, but the televised vocal is all tame. Those sounds are obviously not coming out of that mouth. And then there's the bands whose guitars aren't even plugged in. Keep smiling and jiggling, boys.
 
dobro said:
But it's PRETENCE, RAMI. It's fake. You can always see the joins. My favorite version of it is when the recorded vocal is singing its ass off, but the televised vocal is all tame. Those sounds are obviously not coming out of that mouth. And then there's the bands whose guitars aren't even plugged in. Keep smiling and jiggling, boys.
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I know and I agree. It is fake. But it doesn't bother me. If I go to a live show, I want everything to be live. On TV, I don't really care. Everything, including the "news", is fake on TV anyway.
 
Just saw an ol' Genesis vid where they did this fancy shot from below, and totally obvious empty guitar jacks..
 
The question is, is it appropriate - surely? When it's a fiddle, or designed to cover up ineptitude that's bad. However music and movies do it for mostly production reasons. My absolute hate though is when they try to pass it off as sung or played live. On UK TV over the weekend was X-Factor, and Cheryl Cole (or whatever she is called now) was obviously miming for two reasons - one, way the fact she was full on dancing. After the thing finished, they tried to interview her, but she could hardly draw breath, which was a giveaway that during the dance she was miming, but two, she was simply a lousy mimer! Lip sync random throughout. When people started to use Facebook and twitter to comment on it, their response was to admit it was pre-recorded because of set and costume problems - but to still insist it was sung live, which watching it, only an idiot would believe. My band has lip synced to our tracks simply because we had no production option to do it live. Multiple takes had to have a consistent tempo and sound or the edit wouldn't have worked. I can live with it, and if asked if we were miming, we just say of course! Feature films have dubbed their dialogue for years - nobody notices when it's done properly.

With bands - videos often look horrible when everything is miked and cabled. It's amazing how many drums are miked perfectly in the videos with not a mic in sight? That's life, I guess.
 
I could pretty easily make a video of me doing a tune that would have different camera angles and it would be done by editing together different parts of different takes. I'd do it to a click, so it wouldn't be easy at all to know that the closeup of the fingerpicking wasn't really the fingerpicking that produced the music you're listening to. I'd cut away so fast that you wouldn't know. But I'd be really leery of doing that with the vocal - for one thing, my face isn't something that's really good to have a closeup on, and for another, it'd be way easier to spot the double-tracking.
 
I get why people make videos, but I don't really get why they make videos. I've purposefully and steadfastly avoided making a video for any of my songs for a few reasons - the time, technology, and skill required to make a good one are way out of my reach. The time, well I have the time, but it's not time I want to spend on a video. The technology, I don't use the latest and greatest anything. The skill, I certainly know nothing about making a video. Not a good one anyway. With all due respect to those in here that make their own videos, I've yet to see one that isn't pretty uninteresting. I'm sorry, but flipping still pics along to music or the cliche "studio footage" of a guy wearing headphones singing into a mic is pretty boring. I have what I think are good video ideas for myself, I just don't have the want or the way to make them happen.
 
We could do our respective videos, and we could do good ones if we accepted the limitations of the technology and the limitations of our video chops. Just a straight up 'this is me playing the song' video. Simple edits. Nothing too time-consuming. They'd be worth watching cuz it's all about the song, not the slick. People would like it.
 
dobro said:
We could do our respective videos, and we could do good ones if we accepted the limitations of the technology and the limitations of our video chops. Just a straight up 'this is me playing the song' video. Simple edits. Nothing too time-consuming. They'd be worth watching cuz it's all about the song, not the slick. People would like it.
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Lol no.
 
I'm with both you guys.

I totally get what Greg is saying. My ex-girlfriend made one or two videos for me a few years ago. I have to give her credit for one thing. She had more patience than I could ever muster. The detail work in putting a video together just seemed monumental to me. Like Greg said, it's not that I don't have the time. But I don't want to spend the amount of time it would take to put one together when I could spend it on other stuff that means way more to me, like making music. But if it was a simpler process, I'd probably enjoy making vids.
 
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dobro said:
If I ever, ever do a video that has me lip synching over a track I've recorded previously, just shoot me.

It'll all work out.
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Don't lip sync, shoot video of you actually doing the take that made it to the song.
 
I've done that ... but what if you track, say, 5 guitar tracks, and 10 vocal tracks, then comp together half of one, etc. Then what do you do with the video? In movie/television work, they move the cameras, then start the next 'take'.

As to 'faking it' - its been the TV way for 50 years - go back to the mid 60s - Hullabaloo, Where the Action Is, American Bandstand .... all faked. Sometimes the bands just had fun with it, other times they are 'seriously' trying to fake it.
 
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