Thomas, F., & Johnston, O., (1981), ‘Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life’, New York: Abbeville Press.
p.455 - 471 (mostly paraphrased)
When dialogue was first added, it create all sort of problems, eg. what does the character do whilst talking? There had been single words, phrases, and exclamations before, but never speeches this long that demanded acting. Previously Walt Disney used music, effects, or occasionally pantomime to create a mood. Needed acting to support and fortify words. Very few characters even had lower jaws at the time. Animator tried nodding the head up and down, but there was no feeling that the voice was coming from the character. Looked for key words to be said with more emphasis, then added an accent, gesture, bounce, or dip.
Often characters sang the lines which helped establish immediate rapport and avoided amateur acting (draw in with positive attitude). If there was no reason to sing, they would use rhyme. If a viewer enjoys what the character is doing, they will not be too critical of the animation.
The big problem was to find a way to accent the dialogue or to match the accents already in the delivery. Timing was a real problem. Common accents (that aren’t really acting) were: head wobbling side to side, hands on hips, folded arms, (most popular) fingers pointed at air or others (varied with clenched fist). Usually the arm accenting the word rather than the head. Walt tried to avoid this approach by writing stories based on the character’s feelings, situational changes, thinking and feelings, and interacting with others.
Began to see that meaningless, unrelated movements of characters during dialogue destroyed that little personality they may have animated in earlier scenes. Too much movement makes it impossible to see the face’s expression. Pause between each expression and new attitude. Focus on the relationship between attitude, gesture, and expression. You need to develop a type of acting so natural and right for a character that no one can question the believability.
Avoid making drawings that are just drawings; work to capture the feeling of life.
It was soon found that having the image and sound perfectly matching in time, made the animation appear late. So they tired advancing it up to 3 frames earlier than the beat, and that corrected the illusion of the movement being exactly on the beat. At the end, (depending on the character) the mouth should also retain the feeling of the last word for a little while before relaxing into a nondescript position. But, there is no hard and fast rule on sync, whether it is on dialogue or musical beat. The animators became pragmatic; if it works they do it, if it doesn’t they experiment.
1. Anticipate dialogue with head, body, or gestures 3 to 4 frames ahead of the heavy modulation, but mouth sync should be right on the modulation. If it is a closed mouth (a constant), keep it closed for 2 frames.
2. You need interesting mouth shapes that reflect the personality of the voice. Each character has a different voice so should have different mouth actions.
3. Try to show enough time on the important shapes so that the viewer will be aware they saw the picture of the word.
4. On holds at the end of a phrase or line of dialogue, try to retain a mouth expression that reflect the character of the last word, and use a softening action to keep it alive. Do not change the mouth shape just because you are finished with the word.
5. There are not too many straight in-betweens in dialogue. Favour one extreme over the other.
6. If you have a word that has been stretched out fairly long, treat it like a moving hold.
7. When using the eyes only for sync in an extreme closeup, start the eye into the move at least 3 frames ahead of the accent. ‘Lead’ means to have the big move far ahead of the heavy modulation of the word.
8. When using a blink to help get sync, the eyes should close ahead of the accent by 3 to 4 frames.
9. If you are going to start your dialogue on a drifting or slow move without an anticipation, it helps to start from 3 to 8 frames ahead of the accent.
10. There are times when all dialogue will have to be on ones.
11. The vowel sounds always will require some opening.
12. The consonant sounds are all closed mouths.
13. Be sure the teeth are not painted white or they will flash.
Generally: E sounds show teeth, T and G can pucker like a U, Y and W can go into a small O or U shape, and V and F are best with the under lip tucked under the upper teeth.
Other methods: 1. Rely more on head moves. 2. Character in rear view, shadow, or silhouette, the sync will come from body gestures. 3. Offstage dialogue. 4. Camera on character other than the speaker, animate listening to expose both’s feelings.
Carefully listen to the sound track to find the overall phrasing, timing, accents, fast moves, drifting moves, and pauses, Then look for the unique ways words are said our character. The expression chosen is illustrating the thoughts of the character and not the words that are saying. It is essential the voice actor gives a spontaneous performance.
When animating a lip sync, it is easy to forget the attitude or essential expression for the whole scene. A principle of relating the whole head to the facial expression is to compress it with a frown and open it up with a take. All our rules, list, and suggestions come form trying to unify our message. A sequence overloaded with dialogue can become disturbing to the viewer; sometimes the cartoon communicates better through expression than words. If the line of dialogue does not require a strong, definite physical expression, it might be a warning that it needs to be rethought. Many scenes will be entirely pantomime to develop the character and build emotion.
1. Show the expression change; avoid a fast move when changing expression (change it before or after) and don’t lose it in an active secondary action.
2. Avoid looking up for a frown unless it is sinister/ domineering.
3. Do not hide a smile with the head titled down too far or behind a big nose or moustache.
4. Be sure you have the right staging to show all the expression to their advantage.
5. Have you got the right expression for what your character is thinking? Are all parts of the head and face related to one idea?
6. It is the change of shape that shows the character is thinking. It is thinking that gives the illusion of life. It is the life that gives the meaning to the expression.
“It’s not the eyes, but the glance - not the lips, but the smile…” - Saint-Exupéry
“People don’t always express their inner thoughts to one another; a conversation may be quite trivial, but often their eyes will reveal what a person really thinks or feels.” - Alfred Hitchcock
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