Ss2-Lip sync lessons learnt and morph mouths

Lip sync test lessons learnt

Early editing for a lip sync test

Second part of my specialist study i am doing a lip sync piece using the characters from Street Act which originally would be doing a directors commentary on Street Act but to concentrate on the lip syncing i am going to focus on the last ten seconds in which both characters have a line each.

Thinking about sounds i will be using the best of all the voice overs that have been made offer the last couple of days, also while researching disney and how they work with dialog back in the prime of the 2d days and found they always did the characters physical performance before lip syncing which i found interesting (one cell then the other on top).

Photo above is of a test which i did on Final cut pro last week where i used a static image of the character then put the individual lip shape to symbolise the sound being played, which worked as a test and a learning curve finding that there need to be more in-betweens and hold the longer lasting letters.

Other advice also included when i asked for feedback that of putting your hand under your chin to feel when the mouth opens and closes for what letter you make, then also from a 3d animator told me to the lips should always start moving two frames before the sound comes in which had a huge improvement on the test.

Moving on to plastercine lips

Mouths

As you of noticed if you watched street act that there isn't any lip-syncing needed giving more focus on the characters physical performance, in this next snippet of animation to add to the end of street act there will be as crisp lip syncing as possible so i ditched the original mouths and gone for plastercine.

There are many reasons but main being in-betweens can be simpler to pull of using plastercine with the sculpey ones they were great for pulling off quick expression from the character and understanding the emotions quickly.

There will be less mouths but each one will be able to morph into another word and not look like too fast of a change.

expression and speech

Instant changes of expression between the above two mouths, as the disney guys worked on the performance before the speech i will map out the expression on the dope sheet also but won't be able to do them separately as its stop motion.

most morphable

The above mouth is a particular favourite which will be used and morphed into many words giving simple removal of the teeth and back of mouth if going for a closed mouth.