Slow motion Pop Videos?

[Nelli]

When watching music videos, I've noticed that the musicians often appear to be moving in a slight slow motion, but the lip sync is still precise! How do they do this? Do they film the musicians with the music at a faster speed to enable the video to played back slower to be in sync with the music?

[j2buttonsw]

Not an answer but to further this: what about the Coldplay Scientist video where it is recorded backwards yet the lip sync is "forwards"?

[mikewith]

Nelli - I haven't noticed the slow motion thing, but your suggestion of speeding up the music during recording would certainly work. Hopefully someone more technical will come along with a more scientific explanation ..

[comloulou]

j2buttonsw so glad you mentioned that one! I love the song and video but how the hell do they do that? Is it like video cut and paste?

[Nelli]

further to my question, I reckon the Coldplay video was made by the band singing along backwards to the music so that when the VT is played backwards it appears as though they are singing forwards. I know a number of artists have used a similar method on albums. They would... 1) sing a line 2) listen to it backwards 3) learn (roughly) how to sing it backwards 4) record it 5) then play it backwards and u get this weird unique effect ;-) That's the simplest explanation I have, but it would be great to find out the Director and ask him direct!

[simon_says]

For the video to American Pie, Madonna had to learn to sing the song in double speed so that when the video was played it looked as if she was lip-synching perfectly. For Coldplay's "The Scientist" lead singer Chris Martin had to learn to sing the song backwards as the video was shot "normally" then it is played "backwards", if you like, therefore he appears to be singing normally.

[j2buttonsw]

I am sure you are right simon_says, but I find it staggering that you can learn to lip sync a song played backwards (it sounds too alien) and have the result look so convincing! I realise it is not perfect and he doesn't do it for the whole song, but never-the-less...

[lucasp]

They probably speed up or slow down the music they are singing to so that when they change the speed on the video it looks like they're still singing in time.