Lip Sync Test 2

I  did another lip sync test using keyframe caddy this one came out better than the first and I also use slightly less mouth frames per word so the mouth isn't moving too fast so the animation doesn't look weird and unlike the first test I also animated the jaw to match the movement of the mouth to make the talking look more realistic.

Mood Board

I put together some colours and images of scenes that suit the theme I'm going for in my animation, I like warm orange and red tones for the colour scheme and a old style jazz bar look to the animation setting. As for character styles they will be simple, slightly deformed looking, with big heads and smaller bodies, because I wanted to make it look a bit cuter rather than doing more realistic characters.

As I have decided to continue with the song but in a different style I will be keeping the same theme/colour schemes, but animating the characters in a different style to the first. So to sum it up the first part of the animation will be in a cute deformed style and the second part will in a more realistic (proportion wise) style.

Anamatic

I made a basic anamatic to get the timing down for my animation, I feel I could of drawn a few more scenes in to make it more interesting but if I'm to do another short animation to accompany this one I'd rather keep it simple so I have time to do both.

I've also been thinking making two animations will be somewhat time consuming, but I would really like to use the style that I planned to use fro my first animation. So I have decided I will animate the rest of the song, but using a different style to the first. I will be making a second animatic shortly to accompany this one.

Animation Tests

I did a couple of animations test using the 3D tool in Flash. I found using the 3D tool a lot easier than just tweening the symbol and having to scale it and move it. Using the 3D tool was much simpler because it does all the scaling for you and also adds a blur to the object as it moves closer which gives a good feeling of perspective. While testing this animation method I thought it may be useful for one of my scenes where I need to zoom out in perspective.
There is a slight glitch in the beginning of both of the videos but this is a Quicktime rendering issue.

Storyboard

I started working on a basic storyboard and I used Google Sketchup 8 which is a 3D software by Google to get a stage background which I could use for reference, it very easy to use and there are a number of models that you can download and use for referencing, as well as making your own models to work from. In my opinion it is a very lightweight software that is a lot simpler than Maya or similar softwares and for helping with quick compositions it is very useful. 

As I will only be animating the first 30 seconds of my chosen song I only have 6 verses of song to lip sync to which I think will be achievable. Though I may add in a little more as there is quite a bit of nice instrumental that I could work with, but I don't want to get too ambitious and not be able to finish my animation.

"Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like

On a-Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand

In other words, baby, kiss me"

My first shot will be a wide shot of the character on the stage swaying along with the rhythm of the music.

In the audio clip I am going to use there is a piano playing and just before the singing there is a quick little piano part, so I decided I wanted to add a scene with a piano to break up the shots of the character.

As the first part of the singing starts I will then cut to a close up of his mouth for the first verse 

 And then pan around his face to a side view for the second, for the storyboard I have played around with a few different styles to see what I like best. I'm not sure whether to cut to this scene or rotate around from the front of the characters face to the side. 

From there I'll pan up to some stars in the sky to go with the lyrics and maybe have a shooting star go across the screen.

Then  I will add in a few finger clicks to break up all the shots of the lip syncing so the animation doesn't get to boring. I don't want to keep the focus on one part for to long, I want to keep the animation flowing with the rhythm of the music.

I'll then zoom out from the hand shot to just behind the audience, so we can see from their point of view. I also do a few frames of animation on them so they are swaying to the music as well.

this is how it will zoom out and I will have the audience move in slightly slower to give the scene a bit more depth I will be using Vcam to help me animate this scene as it will make it easier and be more effective.

I will then have my female character come up on stage and take the male characters had, they will have a slight swaying dance on the stage and then he will place his hand on her face and sing the last part of the song. It will then cut to credits and the music will fade out.

Idea + Character Development

I've decided my first idea already and I have been thinking of what I wanted to do for my second idea. I came up with making an 30 second animation for a song. I chose Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra, because it is reasonably slow so it would be easier to animate lip sync to and for the first 30 seconds of the song there isn't too much singing, but what I also liked is that because it's quite a jazzy song I could cut to a piano show, fingers clicking along to the beat of a foot tapping. So overall I would still have lip syncing in my animation, but there wouldn't be so much focus on it that it would get boring to watch. 

I also had an idea to give it a little comical twist by having Sinatra's voice but have a young girl character doing the 'singing', however I scrapped this idea and am sticking with a male character.

The above video is where I will be getting the audio from. I already started on a few characters designs, I may add some extra characters in here and there if time allows it, but for the main part I will just be focusing on the one character and a little background. The idea is just the character being on stage doing a live performance, so at the end I may add in some applause audio clips and in a shot or two the silhouettes of an audience to set the scene. 

My character concepts are pretty much sticking to the time of Frank Sinatra, because I want the animation style (and characters) to still have that old fashioned look to them, thought the animation will be in colour rather than black and white, I'm also thinking of dismissing the patterned idea I wanted to use as this wont fit in with the style.

I tested ut adding patterns the main character design, but I changed the opacity of the pattern so it wasn't so bright. The result isn't that bad and I think I might use it, if I do I will only use the pattern on the suit jacket and hat - which are the same colour so they would be the same pattern, as well as using another pattern on the hair and eyebrows. Here the eyes also have the pattern on them but I think I will just keep them black.

This was the young girl design I was going to use before I changed it to a male character, I did a couple variations in here colour scheme because I wasn't sure what colours to use for her outfit.

Test Lip Sync

I made a quick test lip Sync. To make this I used Keyframe Caddy, this was my first time using this extension in Flash. I found it a bit confusing at first but then go the hang of it after I watched a tutorial called How to Animate Mouths (Lip Syncing) - Flash Tutorial that I found on Youtube. Using Keyframe Caddy made lip syncing a lot easier, though I need a lot of improvement and a better range of mouth frames to get a smoother animation.

The Ideas

I have a few ideas for a story/plot and styles for my animation.

The first is a Bonnie and Clyde type story which will be done in black and white to suit. I will have two characters in a romantic scenario, The male character tell the female he can no longer be with her etc but I will have a funny twist at the end. Bellow are a couple images of the theme I will be aiming for and some styles that I like and would like to so something similar to. Though this may only end up being a short 30 second animation and I will need to do another to reach my minimum 1 minute.

My other idea is something more colourful compared to the first. For this animation the plot is to be decided. I want to use patterns as the base colours for the character(s) and then use the colour black to add in the details, like the last of the bellow images but where we see the pink/coral colour the pattern would be.

Here I have made an example using the images above. The backgrounds will be simple solid colours or very simple drawings so they do not overpower the characters. I think this would be a very fun style by may be complicated as I will have to fill in the patterns to all the parts I want. I also made a quick style test in Flash, A is a test of the black and white style and B is a test of the patterned style. Style B is very busy but I really like it because it's very colourful and it's something different when compared to style A which is far more simple and easier on the eye.

Ideas Generation and Evaluation of Wider Viewing

I started doing some ideas generation for my Talking Point animation, so far I have a few ideas - some that are already a bit out of the question as I want to make sure I can finish for my deadline. At the moment I'm leaning towards a fake sales pitch like the following video.

I thought I could animate something similar to this as it's funny and has lip sync, though it is pretty short so for a minimum of 1 minute I would have to either extend it or make 2 clips.

Sales Are Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td3g7xbo9GY

Though I do like the idea of lots of little snips of different clips/animations put together like the animation to the left, I thought the way it was pieced together was really simple but effective and the short ending part brought it all together. The lip sync in general was very well done and I thought it matched up with the audio quite nicely.

I also found the idea of the different clips to be a good idea, because you're not stuck working on the same animation for a long time. Meaning, I could have a few different animations (probably in different styles) that I could pick and choose to work on, or even if I were to work on one animation at a time it wouldn't take me long and I could move on to the next. I think this would be a better way of working for me as I tend to get bored working solely on one animation for a long period of time.

Blah Blah Blah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDomWionPGI

I particularly liked the style of this animation, especially the way the animator made the expressions and the lip sync very exaggerated/animated, which was really interesting and I enjoyed the w`y it helped show the characters expressions. The audio and the lip sync matched up well and the animation as a whole was funny. For such a short clip it was well animated and you could tell a lot of thought went into the actions of the characters. I really like the cleanliness of the lines and simple shading was very effective, it worked well with the audio and I think that if the animation style was more complex it would have been less funny visually. Unlike the above animation where the lines were less crisp and smooth, but this worked for the animation as it was cute and silly.

Meanwhile, at Adobe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRuHQagPyi4

I thought this lip sync test was good though I did find it was a little off here and there, it think as the character is speaking they should show less teeth and more open mouth frames, the character look a little bit like they were talking through there teeth at some points. Other than that the rest f the lip sync was quite good and the characters motions and expressions went well with portraying hat he was saying.

Wheatley lip sync test 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ihEBHJh7go

The lip sync in this animation was very smooth in the first part and then where the animation is still in the rough we only have the key frames and maybe a few in-betweens. The lip sync towards the beginning was very good and the gestures and body language of the characters was a very nice addition.

Laundry Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ5ziNOtoMU