Almost everyone loves watching movies, it is the one form of entertainment that will never get old. The film industry has evolved drastically over the years thanks to advancement in technology and production techniques adopted by content creators which has opened up doors for countless possibilities for creativity.
Production budgets are getting bigger and bigger along with the quality of the filmmaking which is getting higher and higher even though the audience and it’s expectations remains the same; they want to watch something that makes them go wow! and leave them feeling gobsmacked which is why creators are always pushing the envelope and thinking outside the box.
When it comes to filming techniques, with pre-production sets, lighting setups, post-production effects and CGI, the movie industry is a combination of smokes and mirrors which eventually leaves the audience speechless at the final product. Here are some of the many production techniques adopted by filmmakers to ensure that they get the perfect shot.
Zac Efron had to lip sync Drew Seeley’s singing voice in High School Musical
Non-Singing Actors
Many of us just love musical films, they are indeed fun to watch since you often get to sing along or discover original songs from the film that would make you want to listen to over and over again.
However, what most people don’t realize is that there are times that things are not exactly what they seem to be, an example of which is singers on screen who are not indeed singing. They are not just lip syncing, but they are actually lip-syncing another person’s voice in order to get a shot with perfect visuals along with perfect audio that is later combined and synced in post-processing.
High School Musical
In this 2006 Disney Original Film, we saw actor Zac Efron playing the character of basketball jock Troy Bolton, and there numerous scenes which require him to portray his singing skills and even though he has the looks and the talent to act and dance, at that time unfortunately, he was not a good enough singer.
Turns out the actor couldn’t hit the high notes that were necessary for the first film, which is why Drew Seeley, another Disney talent, had to do the voice over for Zac Efron’s musical parts. Efron wasn’t exactly happy about the fact that he had to lip sync someone else’s voice for a song that was meant for him which might have bruised his ego at that time.
The Greatest Showman
Years have passed and Efron has indeed worked tirelessly on his musical and singing skills. In his most recent film "The Greatest Showman” it turns out that this time it was not Zac but another actor who was required to lip sync over another singer’s voice.
It was actress Rebecca Ferguson who had to lip sync this time around, singing over the voice of Loren Allred who had been a contestant on The Voice. When Ferguson asked how she felt about it, the actress simply replied that it was her job was to act while Allred was meant to sing, and so that’s what they did.
Real VS Reel
Tricking people with singing voices in musical films is not the only lie the film industry is guilty of portraying. These post-production techniques are not exactly referred to as lies since they ensure that the best camera take is combined with the best audio take to produce the perfect shot.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s characters in the Titanic are fictional
Titanic
One of the most popular films of all time is the Academy Award-winning masterpiece; the Titanic which is a dramatization of real life events during the early 20th century which resulted in the sinking of the biggest ship of it’s generation, the RMS Titanic.
It is a fact that almost everything depicted in the film actually happened in real life along with the actors, well maybe except for two. This is still shocking people and it turns out that the tragic love story was just a twist in the tale of the ship, the main characters of the story, Jack and Rose, never existed at all.
Pocahontas
Another film adaption of a real event was the Disney animated version of Pocahontas. It is common knowledge that Pocahontas is a great part of the history due to involvement in the colonial settlement with the English in Virginia. In the animated film, she had a romantic involvement with John Smith, despite the two not being able to understand each other. But then again, in the real events, Pocahontas was only 10-years-old and John Smith was almost 28-years-old, which is kind of disturbing to think about.
