Lip-Synching on TV to the Record

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by beatlematt, Apr 19, 2010.

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  1. beatlematt

    beatlematt Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Gadsden, Alabama
    Sometimes, when you come across these old music clips from variety shows, you see a clip that is totally mimed to the record in front of a live audience, for example-
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySjxZDT_5SA

    On some old clips, at least they're are singing "live" over the record, but a lot of times they were not.

    Didn't the band members feel foolish? I mean, come on-there are not any amps or microphones up there to even give the illusion of being live.

    Was the audience fooled? Did they know any better, or did they just applaud when the applause sign came on regardless of what they were witnessing.

    Did the singers even sing at all just to make the lip-synch more realistic or were they up there just mouthing the words? It seems that a live audience must have been easily duped back then.

    To clarify, I am not talking about shows like Hulabaloo or American Bandstand-but Ed Sullivan or Hollywood Palace where the bands played before an adult audience mixed with a few kids here and there.

    If anybody out there who knows about this or have even been involved in the audience or behind the scenes, I would like to know how bands got away with total miming and lip-synching in front of a mostly adult live audience.
     
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  2. BILLONEEG

    BILLONEEG Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I think they did this to control the time sequencing. "American Bandstand" had a lot of this too.
     
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  3. ROLO46

    ROLO46 Forum Resident

    Its quite hard to tell whats going on on the studio floor.
    The PA is blaring the cameras are swooping.
    Floor managers herding the audience like sheep.
    Only the presenters may be live(ish)
    its difficult for a punter to know.
    its a show,it has magic and fairy dust, hopefully
     
  4. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    It was the way things were. Producers and audiences accepted it because it was the 1960s (or even 1950s), and things were simpler then.

    But even when I was 10 or 11, I'd stare at the screen and go, "what the hell is this? The guitars aren't even plugged in!" So there's always a sophisticated segment of the audience that cares and notices.

    Eventually, there was a rebellion about this and producers forced performers to actually play and sing live (or mostly live). I seem to recall that was a rule for Midnight Special, among other shows of the 1970s. A friend of mine who occasionally did the show as a warm-up comedian told me that several groups showed up, couldn't play their songs live, and the producers fired them, refusing to let them lip-sync on the show.
     
  5. munson66

    munson66 Forum Dilettante

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    In that particular case, they were pre-occupied with being in colour rather than black and white.
     
  6. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    I've always wondered about this too. What was it that the audience heard as this happened in front of them? What did the performers hear?

    Were the speakers playing the recording turned up so loud as to totally drown out the sound of what was happening on stage? Even if they were, surely a drummer banging on his drum-kit would make sounds in addition to what was coming out of the speakers. Surely a piano player would be making additional sounds to what was previously recorded - maybe not even in tune with the tape!?

    Guitars can easily not be plugged in and microphones not present or turned off, but even so, you can sometimes see guitar players going through the motions, strumming something or other, but not taking great care to play the right notes/chords. Wouldn't some of that discordant sound leak through to the audience?

    Something I've always wondered - and I missed the old thread back in 2010.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 17, 2017
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  7. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    Anyone?
     
  8. rockclassics

    rockclassics Senior Member

    Location:
    Mainline Florida
    The best part was when the song would fade at the end and then applause. But the band was still playing.

    The band had to be really good to gradually play softer and fade the song.
    :D
     
  9. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    Thanks to the Gorts for reopening and combining the threads.
     
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  10. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

    Location:
    Silver Creek, NY
    Correct me if I am wrong, but The Beatles performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, were all live, unless it was a previously filmed promo. Was there a reason this could be done on Sullivan but not Bandstand or Top Of The Pops?

    Or was it to prevent flubs. Notice Carl Wilson flubs the guitar intro to Wendy on Sullivan.

     
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  11. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    $

    Miming is cheaper

    Bandstand was always mimed. Even Dick Clark's prime time Beechnut show -- where the classic clips of Dion, Conway Twitty, Ronnie Hawkins (w/19 yr old Levon Helm) etc come from -- was mimed.

    As recordings got more complex they became more difficult to do live, so Sullivan began having artists sing live over pre-recorded backing tracks. IIRC I've read about the Stones cutting a backing track on the afternoon of the Sullivan Show (do these tracks still exist?)

    Remember how primitive some of the TV sound setups were. When Howard Shore looked over NBC's setup shortly before Saturday Night Live debuted in 1975, he insisted it hadn't been updated since "Rock Around The Clock".
     
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  12. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    They would actually play, but since the amps were rarely plugged-in, you wouldn't hear much. The smart singers actually sang so that their lip movements and vibrato would appear on camera. It would require a lot of rehearsal to get it just right, and rigidly play the same notes as on the recording (with no ad libbing), but it could be done. Watch The Beatles in Hard Day's Night or Help, and you can see they did a pretty good job of it (but had the luxury of multiple takes and good editing).
     
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  13. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    Greatest lip synch of all time:

     
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  14. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    2nd greatest lip synch of all time:

     
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  15. john hp

    john hp Forum Resident

    Location:
    Warwickshire, UK
    Fats Domino, live on Bandstand -
     
  16. john hp

    john hp Forum Resident

    Location:
    Warwickshire, UK
    and Jerry Lee -
     
  17. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    According to Wikipedia this is The Saturday Night Beechnut Show of March 29, 1958. Still, it's a very rare example of a live performance from that show.

    This would also seem to be the Beechnut Show.

    I once read an interview with Dick Clark where he claimed JLL was the only artist who absolutely refused to lip synch. I guess this is the appearance he was referring to. I don't know if JLL ever did Bandstand.

    I see you're in the UK so you may not know the differences between these two programs. Beechnut was done in a theater instead of a TV studio, and Beechnut clips invariably feature reaction shots of the audience. Bandstand was a daily (until 1963) program shown in the afternoons done in a TV studio on a smaller budget, and featured lots and lots of dancing. Another difference is that very few Bandstand clips from this era survive. According to Clark, Buddy Holly's only appearance on the show (in 1957) was destroyed in a fire in the early '70s.

    As I said Beechnut had a bigger budget, and often featured relatively elaborate productions for the songs. I think my personal favorite was Bobby Freeman dressed as a circus ringmaster, singing "Do You Wanna Dance" to a baby elephant -- a real, live baby elephant on stage. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, but nothing unplanned occurred.
     
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  18. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI

    Jerry Lee Lewis did indeed appear on "American Bandstand"... There are some recordings a fan did back then with a reel-to-reel tape recorder (taped directly off the TV).
     
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  19. ky658

    ky658 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ft Myers, Florida
    One of the worst examples from American Bandstand has to be The Doors playing the single version of "Light My Fire." John Densmore (the drummer) looks like he is just barely able to make it through.

     
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  20. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    This is how you do it: Iron Maiden - Wasted Years (German TV 1986)

     
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  21. I've been in a live (nearly 'studio') audience of about 300 or 400, for a number music-performance (over multiple years) that were actually recorded LIVE (with NO pre-recorded vocals or instruments of any sort). And let me tell you, the performers and announcers were playing 99.9% to the cameras, to the point where it would have made absolutely ZERO difference if the audience was there or not.

    I'm NOT suggesting lip-synching for an audience ISN'T weird (note the double-negative).

    But playing and singing actually LIVE for an audience ISN'T always "non-weird" either.
     
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  22. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    I saw Aerosmith in 1988 at the Worcester Centrum in MA when they filmed the live shots for the Angel video. The band lip-synched to a playback of the song that was in the monitors and not the PA so we couldn't really hear it. The band seemed embarrassed by the whole process and pleaded with us to bear with them. Later in the show they played the song live.

     
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  23. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    Speaking of the Beechnut show, I really wish that someone would find the Harold Dorman performance from there and get it posted/released. Even photos of him are extremely rare, and to see a live/lip-synched performance would be fantastic........hint hint for anyone with access to the vault.
     
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  24. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident

    If you look closely, Densmore actually misses the opening drum beat for Light My Fire. He isn't even seated yet.
     
  25. tkl7

    tkl7 Agent Provocateur

    Location:
    Lewis Center, OH
    I always wondered how it worked for the drums. Obviously if the guitars, bass, keyboard aren't plugged in, you aren't going to hear them, but I would think the drums will still make noise.
     
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