The secrets for a good lip-sync

To achieve a good lip-sync many times we obsess over making the mouth shapes match the audio sounds, as if it were the most important part to achieve believability. Notice Jim Henson's mastery in handling Kermit the Frog. There are no shapes, only a mouth opening and closing, but its performance turns out convincing Where's the secret?

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THE INTENT OF THE ACTION

Firstly, like in any performance, we must be clear on what the characters intentions are, what are his/her objectives. Kermit the Frog goes from door to door looking for a character to interview. No lip-sync will ever work on a character that isn't clear on his intentions. Jim Henson makes it so that Kermit heads somewhere while talking. That is...It's engaging in an action searching for an objective. This is what makes its performance and lip-sync believable.

ACCOMMODATION MOVEMENT

If you look carefully, another key for character believability is his/her accommodation movement while talking. It's something we all do when we talk or simple observe our interlocutor during a conversation. Jim Henson does it all the time with Kermit while making it talk to achieve believability in dialogue performance.

GOOD JAW SYNCHRONIZATION

The jaw is one of the most important parts of lip-sync. Successfully animating the jaw makes for 75% of a good lip-sync. Adjust the jaw in the early stages of lip-syncing to ensure that it has proper aperture and proper timing. It's essential for the lip-sync to work.

HEAD ORIENTATION

Head orientation is another key for believability in a performance. The angle of the head says a lot of how a character feels and gives him/her naturalness. Nobody has his/her head stay perfectly vertical, we always make some sort of angle with our heads and we keep changing it as we're talking.

As you can see, Jim Henson had a great way of handling and a great knowledge of acting performance foundation which allowed his characters to have that essential magic that made them so believable. Studying them and mastering them is fundamental in my opinion to achieve believable dialogue.

FIDEL CASTRO BEER COMMERCIAL

Beer company Stroh made a TV commercial where they made Fidel Castro publicize their beer brand. It's obviously a work of fiction but it works incredibly well. Why? Because of everything we mentioned earlier. The intent of the action, the accents and jaw aperture terrifically match the dialogue. Despite the fact that the mouth shapes don't match, the performance fits the audio perfectly. What does this mean...That lip-syncing is useless? I'm just saying that in order to make good lip-sync the most important part is that the whole character performance works. A good lip-sync is useless without good acting. Focus on the acting and the lip-sync will be like the icing on the cake, the finishing touch of a well done job.