My Video
We chose to do our lip syncing video to Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song as it is quite popular, everyone knows the lyrics so it wasn't difficult for everyone to learn. It is also a good song for lip syncing as it isn't too slow or too fast but is at a good pace so that it isn't boring. We have a range of people in the shots to mix it up and make it more interesting for the viewers and it also enabled us to experiment ​with more than one person singing at a time and see if we could pull it off and make it clear to see the lip syncing or not.
Evaluation
From looking at our video the lip sycning is really good in some places with both the single person (Reeve Manning) and a group of people (Alice Jackson, Myself and Emily Smith). One area specifically is at the start of the video with all of the us the shot with Reeve doing the majority of the lip syncing and the rest of us doing the background singing, the timing of Reeve's mouth with the lyrics in the song is spot on as well as the head movements to the change in music. I really like the way the three background singers all raise their heads at the same point throughout the video when appropriate and a nearly on time for every section but I also like at the very start where we nod our heads one way and Reeve in the foreground goes the other way. This shows very good syncronisation between us as Reeve can't see us behind him but is still in time with us all. Reeve is also very clear when he is talking so that it's obvious to see what he is saying. One part however, Reeve comes through the door at 2:22 and he is a little bit slow with the lip syncing and it is also hard to see what he is saying because of how far away he is so this is where our lip syncing isn't very good and what we can improve on next time is ensuring that the actors aren't too far away from the screen so that you can't see what they're are saying as it's unclear and hard to sync to the song. Overall I think our skill with lip syncing is very good throughout the course of the video, this is due to playing the song quietly so we knew when to start singing but also due to very fine editing and going over and over to make sure it's near enough perfect.
Generally, it's harder to focus on how accurate the lip syncing is with more people but they way we have done it has overcome this typical obstacle. We use a couple of shots with three or more of us but we have taken it in turns and doing this has allowed us to make it easier and more entertaining for our viewers to watch but also makes it clearer to see what we are saying. We aren't moving around in the video apart from one section where Reeve comes walking down to meet Joanna Metcalf at 1:23 and its hard to see what he's saying because he tilts his head and isn't looking directly at the camera, he isn't dancing but he is walking which can take away the concentration and accuracy of the lip syncing as he needs to be in the right place at the right time. We minimized the chance of dancing confusing the accuracy of lip syncing by having the extra dancers coming in and acting out some of the lyrics, this makes it more entertaining having people jump into the screen but still allows Reeve to focus on what he is saying rather than what he is doing.
You can see in the video we are all wearing onesies, this is because the song is all about being lazy. Onesies are appropriate for this as they aren't revealing for pyjamas but are also very comfortable and flexible, we also all have onesies and they are all different which makes it more intersting to watch as some are animals (monkey and a bat) as well as some normal ones (aztec and stripes) which mixes it up. When Joanna comes into the screen she is wearing normal clothes to stand out more from the rest of us and also because she is mentioned in the song for one line as just meeting a girl and we thought it would be a good idea to make her stand out more from us, this is also shown in the actual video to the Lazy Song as this person is in much more comfortable clothes compared to the rest of them so we have just turned this around. We have used a range of camera angles so that you can get a different view onto us. At 0:23 the camera is pointing down onto us as we are laying down and this is the highest angle we could obtain other than this the camera is generally at eye level to us and the inspiration for this was taken from the real Lazy Song video where they look as though they're singing to a webcam in their living room. We wanted to still use some parts of the real video in our edit so that is recognisable to viewers but we have adapted them in our own way to make our video unique and give it a seperate selling point. Most of the shots are mid-long shots as you can see the most of our bodies but not our feet apart from one shot, we have done this so you can see us in full and see how we are moving with the music. One part we have an extreme close up of Reeve's face which we have repeated throughout the video, this gives a range of different camerawork techniques and shows how we have adapted these into our video. In the editing process we have repeated some shots which are repeated in the song due to time we had to film however this makes it interesting to watch as it's like a flashback to being lazy and not doing anything new throughout the day. We came to realise that there was one part we missed out in filming so in the editing process I had to cut the extreme close up of Reeve's mouth and slow it down a lot to make it look like he was saying 'oooooh' and I think that has turned out quite well. It also tested my editing skills as I had to think of a solution how to fill in the bit we missed and then work out how to slow down the shot.
Doing the lip syncing preliminary task was good and very useful for me as I have never had to sync the movement of someone with the lyrics of a song so it was totally knew but I found it quite easy to do using my own technique. Any mistakes I have made in this video will be useful for me as I can learn from these and improve on them and make sure I don't do them in the final task. A mistake in this one we made was having a zoomed out shot of Reeve at 2:23, this was bad because you can't see what he is saying very well and have to rely on the lyrics of the song to know what is happening and why he is moving and acting the way he is. I will make sure not to make this mistake in the final task. I have learned from doing the prelim task that although all of the shots we took may not line up well at all at first, this can be easily fixed when the track is added onto Sony Vegas Pro and all you need to do is very finely cut the shots so that they sync perfectly to the song which other than the one problem I have mentioned we have done very well. I have also learned how to speed up and slow down shots which was necessary for this clip as it solved another problem we had and I can now take this skill with me through to the final task.
Overall I think as my first try of creating a lip syncing video I have done very well in filming, acting and editing it to make it near enough perfectly accurate. I had a lot of fun making this video which is key in making any piece of work successful.