Musicals

Musicals are my favorite genre of film. I could pop a musical into my DVD player and watch it over and over again, never tiring from listening to the songs being performed. Of the hundreds of times I've seen musicals, I never once thought of all the work that goes into making sure the audio track is synced with the movement of the actors' lips during singing scenes — until I watched a behind the scenes feature on the Glee DVD.

Before I knew any better, I assumed voices were recorded while filming and those were what was used in the final piece, no ifs, ands or buts. However, on one of the behind the scenes clips from the Glee DVD, one of the actresses is talking about how they have to record the songs in a studio prior to filming, and then sing along with the recording so that the movement of the lips match the song.

Who knew?

Definitely not me. A lip-syncher in a crowd of actual singers stands out like a a candle in a pitch black room. They're always so easily spotted. I guess that's why they actually sing along with their recorded voices during taping. Does it ever happen that the producers like the live version better than the recorded version and use that instead? I wonder.

I think a big part of it is that I never realized that voices that are recorded can be muted out so that replacement voices can be added in. It makes perfect sense that they do all of this. Nobody wants to watch a movie where the singing is off-key or where you can hear voices but the mouths aren't moving. It's interesting how much I've learning so far. And I never stop learning. There's always something new.