Lip Sync

I was setting up to work on a video edit, something I routinely do every week. This morning, as I was prepping the editor, I unlinked the video from the audio. I got the base video set the way I wanted, added an opening slide, then re-linked the audio video before the setup render.

As I re-linked the audio/video, it reminded me of one of my first days editing for Second Baptist. It was March 1990, and I was in a new edit suite with three 1-inch video machines, a new-to-me switcher, edit controller, and audio board. John, one of the guys I worked for, handed me three 1-inch tapes and said, “I need you to sync this audio reel with the video reel and record them in sync to this blank tape. By the way, there is no time code on these reels. Let me know when they are done.”

I felt confident until he said there was no time code. One choice I had was to configure the edit controller to use control track, or insert time code on the two masters and stripe the blank tape for the edit. I went with inserting TC and striping the blank. Once the tapes were ready, I had to find a single reference on both the audio tape and video tape. I found where the person in the video closed a book, which was also sound recorded on the audio tape. Even though the TC was different on both tapes, I synced the machines with the edit controller, then back-timed the two reels to the beginning. At that point, I set up an In and Out on the tape that would be recorded, then previewed the edit. During the preview, I made notes of needing to plus or minus a few frames one way or the other. I made that adjustment and then previewed it. The lips were now synced. I pressed Record and let the edit controller do its job while I sat back and watched.

I said all of that to illustrate what was involved in a simple lip-sync recording. Today, as I re-synced the video, I pressed one button, and all was good. Interesting how far technology has advanced in just my career. I do miss the edit suite days, but I am thankful for how easy video editing has become.