Movies - Syncro-Vox

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Syncro-Vox

	Movies - Syncro-Vox

Syncro-Vox (sometimes spelled Synchro-Vox) is a filming method which combines static images with moving images, the most common effect of which is to simulate talking lips on a photograph of a celebrity or a cartoon drawing. The method was developed by cameraman Edwin "Ted" Gillette in the 1950s in order to simulate talking animals in television commercials. Gillette filed the technique on February 4, 1952, and obtained patent #2,739,505 on March 27, 1956.

Because animating a mouth in synchronization with sound was difficult, Syncro-Vox was soon used as a cheap animation technique, most famously in the cartoons produced by Cambria Studios: Clutch Cargo, Space Angel, and Captain Fathom, in which actors' lips voicing the scripted dialogue were laid over the animated figures.

Although Syncro-Vox has long since fallen into disuse as a serious animation method, it survives in comedic form on late-night talk shows, such as Late Night with Conan O'Brien. A spoof of Cambria Studios' Syncro-Vox cartoons called "The Adventures of Mr. Incredible and Pals" was also included as a special feature on the 2005 DVD release of The Incredibles
(2004). The technique was also used in the Barenaked Ladies music video "Thanks, That Was Fun", which combined clips from previous videos with new mouth movements. One of the final non-spoof uses of Syncro-Vox was in a pair of episodes of Courage the Cowardly Dog which featured a talking tree and a talking "spirit of the harvest moon".

Footnotes

(PDF format)
"Don't believe your eyes! How 'Clutch Cargo' cuts corners as a television comic strip", TV Guide, December 24, 1960, pp. 28-29.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Syncro-Vox ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Syncro-Vox; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay