Lip Sync

[lipsyncshane]

[lipsyncshane]

Final Lip Sync

This is my final lip sync, and despite being pushed for time, I am relatively happy with the outcome, especially the amount of facial movement that I feel adds to the mouth shapes themselves. It is quite a static pose, but in terms of the actual lip syncing, I feel it matches up  and emphasises the right words. I feel that the hand movement emphasises “anyone” quite well, and the staging I think makes it all more interesting, regardless of the fact that there isn’t much body movement, I think the face makes up for that. If I was to have more time though, I would add more overall body movement, as I think that' would help to sell the voice track even more. I would probably, on viewing it again, lessen some of the ‘e’ shapes on deserve, as I feel they are currently too exaggerated for a word that is spoken in a lower tone that other words. 

One key thing I noticed is that having the model sheet of the mouth shapes really helped me in this animation, as I haven’t done lip sync for a while, and I feel having spent the time to work out where the cheeks and the chin and the nose are on each movement, as well as the mouth, really adds an organic feel and helps to avoid any stiffness. Having these facial movements worked out before starting the animation was crucial and it was a significant help in terms of both quality and time.

09/05/23

[lipsyncshane]

Mouth Shapes Reference and model sheet

I researched Preston Blair's mouth shapes in cartoon animation for my lip sync and have created a model sheet based of those above. I have tried to incorporate the shape of my character and push some of the shapes even further. These shapes gave me a very solid basis on which to exaggerate. 

I particularly exaggerated the P shape, A shape, and the E shape, , and I feel that these exaggerated shapes are really helping to sell the acting despite the simple actions in my animation so far and they marry well with the character shape. 

I have chosen the mouth shapes that are relevant to my voice clip, as there is no point drawing something I’m not going to use. Having analysed it many times, I'd say the emphasis in the voice clip I’ve chosen, “I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t partially deserve it”, is on the words, I’ve, Never, ,Anyone, & Partially, this means that, as i mentioned above the ‘AI’ ‘E’ and P shapes are going to be exaggerated, whereas the L’s, K’s, D’s etc can be understated which is equally as important, as it will look unnatural if there is too much mouth movement.

28/04/23

[lipsyncshane]

Final Animatic and storyboard

This is my final idea for the lip sync, and I really like the simplicity of it and i think it works so well because of the composition and staging, which leads the eye to the fox. Sometimes less is more and in a 5 second animation I think a good sense of timing is amongst the most important principles here. 

I received feedback that while the staging was good, the chicken was too far to the right, which is true, in animation for tv, he would probably be getting cut off, so I will move him a bit closer to the fox in the final.

I will now move onto mouth shapes.

18/04/23

[lipsyncshane]

Final Character Design and Animatic

I have finalised the character design for the fox based of the shape language and the size I want, and I have put together a storyboard and animatic of an idea that I had, but simply has far too much going on to work in five second clip, so I will be abandoning this idea.

My character design is very much inspired by the animals in Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) I feel that the dialogue suits this style, and to me the dialogue for “I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t partially deserve it” sounds like it could be an anthropomorphic animal children’s book character with questionable morals. So I have based the character design off this idea. I also like the handmade feel of the movements in Fantastic Mr Fox and even though it is stop motion, the acting works really well at emphasising words from the voice actors.

While I am basing the design on a Fantastic Mr Fox esque, anthropomorphic fox, I did feel that I wanted my character to be less true to life in head shape and body shape to make him more mailable, and I feel that having a bit of bounce to a face can be a good help in selling certain mouth shapes, so i have given him a rather large flabby face and chin.

14/04/23

[lipsyncshane]

Idea and Character Sketches

The voice clip I have chosen for the lip sync is ‘I’ve never killed anyone’ and my Idea for the lip sync is for a fox to be saying this in front of a chicken. Above are some character ideas for the fox, which I want to follow a triangle shape language, to insinuate danger, a large build to add to this, whilst also giving him a posh persona to match the voice in the clip.

I have decided that I like the shape in the coloured sketches.

01/04/23