Aims

• Learn lip-sync techniques, character acting, and storytelling in animation.
• Create a 10-15 mins animation to dialogue for a show reel.

Personal goals 

• I really wanna push my acting and character design and composition. I feel like these or all things I have been pushing to their extreme
• I want to focus on learning pose to pose animation and stop relaying on straight ahead. 
• I wanna become proficient in Toon Boom 

What is lip Sync?

Synchronising dialogue with lips and body movement(acting). We as audience member tend to look at the face of a character to good lips are important. But even without seeing a mouth we can get what the character is feeling through body language. We are trying to do both 

Body – we are using pose to pose animation and emphasising key moments of drama in the dialogue.

Lips – emphasis in the talking, and creating mouth shapes that correspond with them.   prioritise the loudest or most exaggerated moments first, and then spend the rest of the time working out how to get from one to another convincingly (much the same as with posing the character’s body). To help with this we use an ‘x-sheet’ to  breaks down the individual sounds you hear in each frame, so you know what mouth shape to choose.

Free drawing 

Had 3 audios I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to choose. And personally I thought that they were boring. This changed after a started doing the free drawing exercises. 

We listened to the clip on repeat and sketching what came to mind. At this point I was really flustered and was kind of stuck in my head. Jess recommended using a scrap piece of paper instead of my personal book and continuous line drawing- so I actually ripped out some pages and to start a draw with my left head to I would worry about the drawing being neat. Once I started I really enjoyed the process. 

I was trying really hard not to be super literal with what I was drawing but the moment they said an object it was my first instinct to draw it. But when I looked at the page as a whole it felt like a was building a world for where the charters are going to go. Then I thought maybe the objects at the characters? (Just food for thought) 

I had 4 different audios, 

• one from my dad to build courage to talk to strangers-(I actually like it though I think he speaks slowly and there isn’t any background noise) 
• one from a lady at the bus stop-( she was really sweet but she was really quite) 
• one from the corner store lady- ( I see her weekly to buy myself chocolate and she was cool) 
• one from a lady and her niece on the bus- (it was the nieces first time in London and the lady had been here for 10 years) 

Choosing which audio I was going to use was the most stressful part. I felt like each on had their on merits and I don’t wanna leave any one behind.

Platform 

We talked about that we should build a platform for our story to stand on.  Then  when conflict happens that’s when the platform tilts – that what interests the viewer, the tilt. Without a clear platform/foundation we get confused and likely remain detached. 

• Who + who = what is their relationship? 
• Where are they?
• What is happening
• what are they doing? 

Research/Inspo

Nick Park’s Creature Comforts 1989 – I really love the acting and how the voices matches the animals. It feels like we are actually dropping into the interview them, as if we are actually interrupting their day.

The London pigeon Chronicles – loved the that they took this very common conversation that I have heard hundreds of time and applied it to pigeons. I also love the pause at the end of the laugh and to digest the conversation.

I am absolutely in love with the acting of this though the music carries a lot, I want to go for something dramatic

I love how the clean lip-sync is even with acting. I find its very hard to do both.

There are 3 types of Mood boards 

• Style research – Most common type of mood boards that are made. What style feel relevant to the project? Focus on line, Colour, Texture, Lighting, Shape language, Composition
• Photography from life – looking for ideas of clothing, Hair, landscapes/environment from real life. I might even go out and take some photos
• Colour and mood – gather image that creates mood but also deciding on what mood to make. colour palette

It is also important not to just make a mood board but to be purposeful with what images you use – to show this make sure to annotate each mood board.  – (How are they influencing your work?) 

It’s important to reflect on this as you’re creating designs and in your submission.)

Style Research

Photography from life

Colour and mood