You can see I'm a huge fan of Shawn Kelly, he's a great teacher and I owe him a lot, well... professionally ;) I don't know if this material is copyrighted, but I copied it from Modi. I hope Shawn doesn't mind :D I'll just quote a few principles of facial animation and lipsynch that I found most interesting; for the whole thing, visit Modi. The stressing in bold is mine.
The first one is the biggest one and it just hit me like a nuclear blast BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMM:
Rhythm of the body is more important than technically accurate Lipsync. Its like watching a performance rather than a talking head. The audience first looks at the eyes, then the body, then the mouth.
The Muppet theory: the jaw opens only on the main syllables. First block out the jaw. Put your hand under your jaw and figure out how & when the jaw opens and closes.
LIPSYNC COMES LAST!!!
Work within an expression. Apply moving holds, do acting within an expression, give yourself somewhere to go. Flow through the holds.
Find the dominant sounds. Most accents fall on vowels (even most body and head accents fall on vowels).
FACESYNC not LIPSYNC. The mouth is not independent of the face. Think of the whole face.
Hold the last shape. Don't go back to a neutral shape right after you finish the line.
Keep closed shapes shut usually at least for 2 frames. ex : b m p
Slow in.... POP out. Slow in... if u are saying "E" for 3 frames start with an E shape but don't dial in 100% of E. POP out...The P in POW would slow in but when the P sound is made it pops out quickly.
Don't over-annuntiate.
Don't listen to your line, study it. Act it out while listening to the line.
Chart the voice path. Where does the voice get louder and softer, higher pitch or lower pitch. The ups and downs, the inflections.
Expression changes get lost in movement. For example - if there is a quick head turn, you don’t want your change of expression lost in the motion, change before or after a big move.
Clarity. Every part of the face should add to the expression. When you smile, smile with your eyes.
The brows lead expressions. Even for a blink- the brows will tend to lead the movement. First brows, then eye blinks – this is a subtle movement.
Remember your anchors. Solid vs. Flexible. Scale the head from the fleshy part – not the skull, but the lower face where the meat of the face is. Don’t squash the cranium!
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About me
I'm a character animator, visual artist, game dev, and music composer. I like to doodle, write, experiment, and plan my next big thing. I love tech that inspires and enables art. I have a formal background in music composition. And I like to walk around the world and see things up close. Archives
February 2022
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