At the start of the elective, we given a choice of which audio we would like to choose to lip-sync in our 15 second animation. Either from the variety of examples from my lecturers or chosen audio of my own with the approval of the lecturers. I’ve chosen the latter as I found it to have a lot of freedom to explore and discover the right audio for my animation elsewhere.
My first choice was sampling some audio from one of my favourite podcasts to listen to. I was originally planning on using it, though there were plenty of things that I felt would be challenging to deal with. First of all, the audio was very explicit in its use of language. The lecturers have stated it’s okay to use audio with explicit language, but despite the chaotic and humorous tone of the audio, I still felt that it’s too explicit and aggressive to utilise for this project. Not to mention, it’s very difficult to find a point to mark where the animation should begin and end with the span of 10-15 seconds, and the amount of talking that is going on causes some issues to prioritise on the two primary people that are talking, which would be another issue when breaking them down in the X sheets. So I’ve decided to not use this audio.
Unused audio below:
However, I’ve later found another sample from the same podcast to use which I found to be a lot better to practise my lip-syncing around, as well as it being very funny and explorative to utilise. There are moments where it’s quiet and moments where it’s loud which is great to show body and vocal expression through the character within the animation. Plus, imagining how the setting would be for the animation whilst taking the audio out of context, it sounded to me like an angry boss getting really annoying by some kid who’s been spamming him about some anime rap. Silly as it sounds, it given me thought on what to explore upon in terms of setting, characters, expression and potential camera shots like zoom ins and close ups. With all these aspects in mind, this audio felt like a good example to use for my lip-syncing animation.
My chosen audio below, 0:05-0:20 mark is where my animation would cover:
Storyboard
Before I’ve done a moodboard for my animation, I went on to doing a storyboard first as I normally start with one before working on anything else just so I have an idea of what camera shots, character expressions and positioning to include within my animation.
Moodboard
For the moodboard, I wanted to list out which attributes that I wanted to feature in my animation, ranging from art direction, character appearance, background/setting design, colour contrast and frames.
Character Designs
When designing my character for this animation, I was advised to aim for a more distinctive design to make them stand out in the animation. Given the fact that my character has mostly human characteristics, I thought it would be best to present him in angular and shaped way, using his formal suit attire as a lead into making his appearance.
As I was sketching out his design in my sketchbook with the front, 3/4 and side turnarounds, I was also sketching out the appearance of his eyes, head shapes and facial expressions. I’ve done this as a form of guidance for when I’d eventually move into drawing up the character sheet in Photoshop whilst adding in a colour palette for his appearance in the animation.
Backgrounds
Since I’ve settled with the setting of the animation being in one location, the boss’ office room, this would allow me to draft out the different camera perspective shots of the room itself.
Some of the backgrounds I’ve sketched in my sketchbook had to alter to make it easier for character to appear in front of them. I would of loved to keep the desk from the second and fourth shot, but it would meant for some extra work to get around that issue, given the timetable that we were given for this elective being 5 weeks long, the desk had to be removed.
X Sheets
It was now time to move on to the lip-syncing plan of the animation where we had to utilise X sheets. X sheets help break down character’s speaking sounds and patterns for where there is a change in their dialogue. Even with using software such as Adobe Audition to help me navigate and make note of which sound was being made at each frame, it was still difficult for me to nail down how this sort of process works. However when I’ve begun the animation phrase in Toon Boom, I’ve went back to fix up the timing of each sound which wouldn’t been an issue if my audio started at frame 1 instead of frame 120, making it more time consuming to label each sound and milestones with the audio from start to finish.
Animation Work In Progress (31/03/2022)
Clean Up
Final Outcome