Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried

In your opinion, was their singing "real" or do you think it was all edited. In my opinion, Amanda's vibrato is very...weird. It sounds really husky, and Meryl's singing was very good but almost too good to be true...

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Its all real. So much so that for the first-time in movie musicals (and thanks to the advent of 'live' recording), they were able to record the actor's singing while actually filming. Normally in movie musicals, though actors are singing 'live' while filming, their voices are dubbed over by their own pre-recorded tracks during post-production.

For MAMMA MIA!, the actors sung 'live' over their pre-recorded tracks so elements from both 'on location' vocals and pre-recorded tracks were used. 90% of Meryl's "The Winner Takes it All" uses 90% of her actual 'live' on location singing. Same as her "Mamma Mia".

This explains why for the first-time in a movie musical, it doesn't look like they are simply lip-syncing but actually singing. Also, the actors recorded their pre-recorded tracks months prior to filming, which explains why the vocals heard in the film are noticeably different from the soundtrack recording. The film vocals are a combination of the 'live' on location singing and the pre-recorded tracks.

What modern recording doesn't do some modification?

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Updated On: 12/28/08 at 04:53 PM

Part of what makes MAMMA MIA such a fun musical is how the vocals really fit the situation, so in the title song Meryl adapts her singing to what she is doing physically/emotionally. It's completely different from her performance in the soundtrack. Same goes for "The Winner Takes It All," "Money Money Money," et al.

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Didn't Rex Harrison refuse to lip-synch to pre-recorded tracks on My Fair Lady? I know that doesn't make it an 80% (or whatever) live-recorded movie, but it is a good chunk, decades before these other films came about.

I actually ripped the "live" version of The Winner Takes It All because I like it so much more than the soundtrack.

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During the making of the film version of FUNNY GIRL, the song "My Man" was filmed and William Wyler called 'cut,' ready to move on.

Barbra Streisand, infamously a critic of lip-syncing, begged Wyler to give her one more take where she could perform the number "live" without the track, saying she thought she didn't think she could truly capture the necessary emotion unless she was actually singing.

Wyler (who didn't see how she could possibly do the song any better) reluctantly agreed, and that one take became the devastatingly stunning finale that made it into the film.

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Updated On: 12/29/08 at 01:55 AM

I thought Amanda Seyfried was terrific in the movie. She looks absolutely lovely in it and she's incredibly effervescent. Her efforts almost make the plot seem logical. I think she should've received a Golden Globe nom for it.

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While Amanda's voice and vibratto are fairly unique, I actually think it's quite lovely. I thought it was refreshing and different. I really liked everything about her performance in that movie. :)