Lip sync  

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"In one of his first television appearances (on the premiere of NBC's Saturday Night Live, October 11, 1975), Andy Kaufman lip synced to the Mighty Mouse theme song (but only to the words "Here I come to save the day!")"--Sholem Stein

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Lip sync or lip synch is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals.

Audio for lip syncing is generated through the sound reinforcement system in a live performance or via television, computer, cinema speakers, or other forms of audio output. The term can refer to any of a number of different techniques and processes, in the context of live performances and audiovisual recordings.

In film production, lip syncing is often part of the post-production phase. Dubbing foreign-language films and making animated characters appear to speak both require elaborate lip syncing. Many video games make extensive use of lip-synced sound files to create an immersive environment in which on-screen characters appear to be speaking. In the music industry, lip syncing is used by singers for music videos, television and film appearances and some types of live performances. Lip syncing by singers can be controversial to fans attending concert performances who expect to view a live performance.

In music

Lip sync is considered a form of miming. It can be used to make it appear as though actors have substantial singing ability (e.g., The Partridge Family television show), to simulate a vocal effect that can be achieved only in the recording studio (e.g., Cher's Believe, which used an Auto-Tune effects processing on her voice); to improve performance during choreographed live dance numbers that incorporate vocals; to misattribute vocals entirely (e.g., Milli Vanilli, a band which lip synced to recordings made by other singers), or to cover deficiencies in live performance. It is also commonly used in drag shows. Sometimes lip sync performances are forced on performers by television producers to shorten the guest appearances of celebrities, as it requires less time for rehearsals and hugely simplifies the process of sound mixing, or to eliminate the risk of vocal errors. Some artists lip sync because they are not confident singing live and want to avoid singing out of tune.

Because the film track and music track are recorded separately during the creation of a music video, artists usually lip sync their songs and often imitate playing musical instruments as well. Artists also sometimes move their lips at a faster speed than the recorded track, to create videos with a slow-motion effect in the final clip, which is widely considered to be complex to achieve. Similarly, some artists have been known to lip sync backward for music videos such that, when reversed, the singer is seen to sing forwards while time appears to move backwards in his or her surroundings, such as in Coldplay's "The Scientist". Notable exceptions to this trend include Bruce Springsteen's hit "Streets of Philadelphia", which only uses the instruments as a backing track while the vocals were recorded with a microphone attached on the singer, giving a different feel to it.

On American Bandstand and most variety shows of the 1960s, vocals and instrumentals were all (with a few notable exceptions on American Bandstand) synced to pre-recorded music.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Lip sync" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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