Lip Sync Week 1

On Monday we were introduced to the project and shown some examples of lip synced shorts from previous years. Jess got us to really think about the reasons we were attracted to certain aesthetics and visuals over others, in order to be able to develop our own styles and voices. We were also given until the end of the lesson to pick our audio. Luckily, over the February break I had already been looking for audios and had narrowed it down to these four.

While this one was quite funny with well established characters, it contained a lot of overlapping talking, and I couldn’t imagine a scene as visually dynamic as the chosen audio.

This one had very clear audio and good timing, however, like the first audio, I couldn’t imagine a really engaging visual scene for it.

This audio was much too long and I couldn’t decide where to cut it. It also contained a lot of overlapping talking which I figured would take more time to animate as several characters would have to be drawn moving and talking for each frame.

Ultimately, I picked this audio because it was funny with succinct comedic timing and I could imagine a lot of variation for expressions and defined characters. I cut it down to right after the “he’s dead!” to be 13 seconds.

I watch Drawfee all the time, and they just say weird stuff and do silly bits, so I knew I would find something, but they tend to reference existing IP a lot, so I looked for bits that did not contain existing characters (they sure love referencing Sonic and Goofy) in order to be able to be creative and original with my characters and setting.

I must give an honorable mention to the “Educational Duck Armaggendon” bit which was way too long for me to choose, and has been animated by DeepBlueInk. I just needed to make sure the world (you reading this) watches it.

For the next lesson we were to have also created some moodboards and sketches based on our initial ideas for the chosen audio. On my art Instagram account I keep folders of art I find, separated by the different aspects I like like linework, color, texture, etc. so I always go to this resource when I’m starting a project.

I did the activity suggested by Jess, where I listened to the audio and quickly sketched whatever came to my mind. I ended up with the idea to juxtapose the hilarious, emotionally devastating quip with a serious setting such as a business meeting or support group. I also drew lots of little guys/creatures because putting animals in serious settings is also quite funny to me.

I also started a Pinterest board just saving random images referencing different styles I was leaning towards, as well as different ‘little guy’ characters.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/cosmicCactoos/lip-sync/

Finally, I looked at some more style references on Instagram saving them to folders, as well as specifically noting down the studio Science SARU. I really like how they comp their backgrounds and characters together, especially in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and Devilman Crybaby.

Wednesday started with a recap of narrative structures. Below I made some notes from activities we did to think about the structure of our own animations.

We then looked at scriptwriting, with examples of screenplays and beat sheets. I transcribed my audio into a screenplay style script.

Throught production I’m referring to each character by the ‘actor’s’ names because I had not named or designed them yet.

Then we recapped storyboarding and created thumbnails for our animations. I couldn’t decide between some compositions, as well as the order of clips when I created the animatic so this is something I want to ask for feedback on during our sharing sessions next week.

I created two different animatics to show the two ideas I had for the order of shots.

On Friday we looked at character design and did some exersises in our sketchbooks. We looked at structure, shape language, and aesthetics. We did some sketching activities to loosen up where we created characters from silhouettes as well as turning objects into characters. I feel like I struggle with design in general because I find it difficult to come up with details to add character to both characters and environements, but these low pressure sketches really help with just drawing and getting over the first hurdle of a blank page.

Over the weekend we were to design our characters and create turnarounds and character sheets. As I had four characters and work on Sunday, I didn’t quite get to finish or refine my designs, but I finished at least 1 drawing for each character. I wanted each character to be in a different style, A) to stand out from the gray drab setting at the beginning, and emphasize each personality and role in the group dynamic and B) to make the lauging sequence even more chaotic and colorful.