Lip-sync locked frame-perfect without character movement — actor hits every syllable rigidly. Looks uncanny, used intentionally for effect or dance sequences.
Dead Sync
When the actor hits every sound precisely on the frame and does nothing else – that is Dead Sync. The audio is perfectly aligned, but the performance feels robotic. No natural timing, no delay between thought and speech, no microscopic movements that constitute real communication. On set or in the ADR studio, this often happens unintentionally when working too rigidly to markers; however, Dead Sync is deliberately used for effects, digital characters, or precisely those dance scenes where precision outweighs authenticity.
The practice on set: Many actors fall into Dead Sync when they are too tense or when the director places too much emphasis on synchronous lip movement. You see it immediately on the monitor – the lips click mechanically, the gaze remains fixed, the head doesn't move with the natural cadence of speech. Dead Sync is even more common in the ADR process: the voice actor sits in a dark studio in front of wild track playback and tries to be frame-accurate. The result then sounds as if a puppet is speaking. The solution is to tell the performer to speak *behind* the sound, not on it – a delay of two to three frames is often enough to restore naturalness. The audio still sounds synchronized to the viewer, but the performance breathes.
Where Dead Sync makes sense, on the other hand: in lip-sync dance scenes, with computer-generated creatures, or with intentionally artificial characters (androids, puppets, over-the-top comedy acting). In these contexts, the mechanical precision is the statement. In drama, however, Dead Sync is a mistake that usually cannot be fixed in editing – you would have to reshoot or do a weak ADR pickup. Tip for sound editing: If you notice the actor is in Dead Sync territory, shift the track back one or two frames. The viewer won't see a difference, but the actor suddenly sounds alive. Related to the concept of *fluff frames* in editing – small temporal flexibility creates big emotional differences.