Review of the Unit and Year

Review of the Unit and Year

In this Unit we were asked to produce a 10 to 20 seconds animation to the audio clip of our choice. I originally chose a piece of audio clip from Rock and Roller. Having started the lip sync I did not really get on that well with it. I just didn’t like the gaps in the dialogue and felt that I could not put enough expression into the character.

Instead, I decided to choose a different audio clip. I found an interview on You tube of Charlie Sheen and thought that this was more suitable and interesting to animate.  The clip included one person speaking with a more expressive attitude.  I still found this hard to animate and feel I need more experience and more time to learn techniques. Despite this I do feel that I have learnt a lot and I am beginning to make some progress. I am looking forward to trying out something similar using a different rig to see if this will be any easier.

This is the final project of the year. I have learnt a lot throughout the year. I will have to go back and revisit the units I have done and improve upon them with the benefit of my increased experiences.  

Final Lip Sync Animation

Here is my final video. I enjoyed doing this animation and although I found it quite challenging, I have gained a lot of knowledge through this experience. Because I was developing my skills during this project I now feel if that I started again, I would have more experience to produce a better outcome, and more quickly.
I found it hard to find a good bit of audio to animate. I still think that I could have chosen a better audio clip. I wanted a more varied and interesting audio that would enable me to produce a more exciting piece of animation.
I know that there is not enough detail in my animation, but I found it difficult to know what to add. When I started to use the rig I was not very happy with it. I would have preferred the rig to also have had IK as well as FK. I found it very frustrating to move every part of the arm individually.
I like my key poses which I think work quite well. I want to try to do this animation again using a rig that has IK as well as FK. I am looking forward to spending time in the summer improving my animation techniques.



Final Lip Sync Animation

Storyboard and research

Here is the storyboard of what I thought should be the key poses.

After doing the storyboard I had an idea  in my head how I wanted the animation, so I filmed myself a number of times and this is the end result.

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Camera Angles
A medium shot is useful in an interview to show close up reactions and still be able to show reactions and body language.
MS - Medium Shot
The medium shot is from just below the waist to above the head. There is more headroom than in the bust shot. This shot is used if the person is animated with their hand movements, etc .(from the website below):
http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/cpt/projects/welcomeassignment/typesshots/camshots.html
Bust Shot
 This shot shows your subject from above the knees to above the head. It is often used when the subject of the shot is doing something that requires the audience to see some detail.

Mid Shot

  

Lighting

There is generally a three point system for lighting:

·       a.  A 'key' light that is the primary source of light for the scene

·       b.   A 'fill' light to soften the shadows caused by the key light. This is usually placed on the opposite side of the camera to the key light.

·       c.  A 'back' light is placed above and behind the subject to outline the subject.

Diffect effects can be created by varying the intensity, position and diffuseness of these three lights.

http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/lighting/lighting_film_video.htm

Charlie Sheen Lip sync animation

Here is the original footage and the audio which is part of the Charlie Sheen interview that I have decided to use for my animation. I am not sure how much of this 20 second clip I am going to use as I found the Rock and Roller clip hard to do just for a lip sync (without the body movement or facial expressions).


Audio




Interview clip

Rock and Roller Test and Change of Audio

Having done a lip sync test, I did not really like the lip sync for this audio. Even though the audio piece was quite long there were gaps in it that made the lip sync difficult. Cutting out bits did not seem to help. For this reason I am going to look for another piece of audio. I feel having tried to do the lip sync I am better at deciding what audio will make a better animation.

Rock and Roller Audio Research

I chose this audio which you can hear below. I thought this audio was quite interesting. Next I got a camera and filmed myself and my face to capture the action and dialogue for the animation.


Facial expressions for the audio.




The actions for the audio.




Audio for Rock and Roller

Tutorial Video

This is a tutorial video I found which was very useful. I thought the guy explained it well and it was a good technique.

Research Videos of Moom rig (and 2D)

I like this animation, especially the use of the cameras and how the two characters interact.




I also like the key poses in this animation. 




I really like this animation as it is really simple but effective. I like how the character leans towards the camera which is a good effect.




I like this 2D animation which I think it is quite effective.

Some of my sketches of facial expressions

Moom rig

Here is the Moom rig which it is the rig we were given for our lip sync animation.

It looks quite a good rig for facial expressions. I have had a quick go with it moving parts around and it seems to work quite well.

Reaserch for Animation Lip sync facial expressions

I researched some pictures that would help me with my animation. This is to show the different shapes of mouths and facial expressions.

The History of Lip Sync

The first commercial screening of sound-on-film took place in 1923, which showed a short motion picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film..The first animated dialogue had been established as ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ 1926. In this a dog in the film mouths “Follow the ball, and join in, everybody”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Old_Kentucky_Home_%28film%29. This was made by Max and Dave Fleischer of Fleischer Studios.  

By 1929 following ‘Steamboat Willy’ Carl Stalling streamlined the production process at Disney and sound was recorded before, not after, the animation was done. This lead to a more music based cartoon series, the’ Silly Symphonies'. The first of these was the ‘Skeleton Dance’ (1929) and the beginnings of lip-sync can be seen in the cat. (Animation Art edited by Jerry Beck, 2004, Flame Tree Publishing) 

The Fleischer Brothers in conjunction with Paramount developed the Talkartoons in 1929. These were very successful and lead to the creation of Betty Boop with ‘Dizzy Dishes’ in 1930. She was well suited to talking pictures and her character worked well with music and dialogue.

 

Another character that was one of the first to use lip sync was 'Popeye', also from the Fleischer Studios (1934). Popeye was very successful because of the excellent voice actors that gave a human element to the animation. 

 

Disney Studios were also improving upon their animation with sound. New animators like Burt Gillett, Wilfred Jackson and David Hand were now working in colour and new characters like the Three Little Pigs, Donald Duck and Snow White were being developed. Snow White was released in 1937 as the first full length, colour, and animated sound film.

In these first animations the music was the most important aspect of the film. The animation was defined by the tempo of the music. As lip sync and dialogue improved, these aspects became more important and detailed storylines and characterisation could be developed. By the time Snow White was made in 1937, the animation was so good the quality so high that it has not aged, whereas films of that era would look very dated if viewed today.