Yet another Dialog Webinar

[robcat2075]

"The 10 Commandments of Dialog Animation", Jan 14th

 

That already sounds corny*, but... it's free!

 

I guess you register at http://www.kineticsoa.com/

 

Looks like another hand-drawn animation artist will be lecturing.

 

 

 

 

 

*Please Dear Lord, don't let him actually say "Thou Shalt Not..."

[fae_alba]

I just got it via email. One page, simply typed, no real info. Simply put, let body language support the dialogue, perfect lip syncing and mouth shapes aren't as important. Again these site is geared towards 2D, flash animation, not 3D. So I that last bit doesn't ring true for me.

[Rodney]

*Please Dear Lord, don't let him actually say "Thou Shalt Not..."

 

Hehe. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Now you know he's gonna say it.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

As my schedule is clear I'll will try to attend.

 

(At this point I'm not sure if this is a webinar, a downloadable document or both)

 

Paul,

I haven't seen the document you mention so I cannot comment on that. I didn't see a link to download it on the webpage.

Perhaps I need to reregister again.

 

that last bit doesn't ring true for me.

 

I assume you refer to the perfect sync and shaping of the mouth being just as important as the body language if not more so. (Note: This is a reversal of what you seem to say the paper suggests)

 

While there is a lot of wiggle room in both hand drawn and CG, as a general rule, body language that supports the phrasing of the action (and therefore the dialogue) is going to be more important to the performance than perfect lip sync and mouth shapes. The classic example used to illustrate this is that of the Muppets, who with very little articulation of the mouth are still able to achieve great performance; the art of pantomime can then be enhanced further with sound and timing (sync).

 

There are many reaons for this to be the case. One is simply that we don't always see the mouth moving to know if it is/is not in sync. Our view might be obscured by distance, by some other object or by our own inattention. In these cases we assume the words are emanating from the mouth of a character. In the real world what helps us in this is that we easily perceive the broad and even subtle gestures of the person that suggest to us that the words could not possible come from any other place.

 

We can look at this in the opposite way again by considering puppetry. If the puppeteer's mouth is moving we assume the words to be coming from him (we are especially drawn to the movement of the puppeteer's mouth if everything else is held in place). The puppeteer overcomes this by reducing the movement of his mouth and augmenting the movement elsewhere; using the art of distraction to redirect our attention (via movement of the puppet) because that's where he wants our attention to be.

 

The magician can take advantage of this especially at greater distances where we tend to place a lot of anticipated inference into what we believe we are seeing.

In closeups, where there is less of an opportunity to distract the viewer the importance of precise timing and shaping will considerably increase.

 

It's a fascinating subject. Well worth studying.

I hope my pitiful attempt to explore it makes some sense.

[robcat2075]

I think mouthshapes gained status in animation because in TV 2D sometimes the mouth is the only thing moving.

 

In 3D they've become somewhat less gospel because on the big-time-feature level, in addition to the body language realities Rodney notes, the thing is going to get dubbed into a whole lot of other languages and different sounds are going to end up matched with the mouthshapes.

 

 

At AnimationMentor they hardly talked about mouthshapes at all. Our first dialog test had to be just mouth open/close and it was possible to get something going that way.

 

http://www.brilliantisland.com/am/youreright228s.mov

[Rodney]

Saw this posted elsewhere so... adding this here mainly to keep folks up to date on resources from Kinetic School of Animation.

 

The folks at Kineticssoa have posted a video of Mike Polvani's lecture at AI Santa Monica back in August 2011 on using traditional animation techniques in Flash.

As this is Part I, it's more of an introduction and overview of who Mike is and so he only opens Flash during the last five minutes or so.

 

Mike Polvani Lecture at AI Santa Monica Part I

 

This video runs about 35minutes.

A lot of this is animation from Mike's demoreel but there are some points of interest with regard to the process/practice of animation for those with the time to look for them.

 

Mike shows some of his work in various stages of completion from a variety of the projects he's animated on and I believe the highlight for many may be his short commentary on scenes from 'Iron Giant'. The sound is a bit hard to pick up at times and so I'm sure I missed a lot of information relayed in the audio.

 

What I believe to be of most value to animators is the brief moments of insight into the quick sketching out of ideas to get the rough animation in place. Once the idea and flow and the basics animation is working you can begin the refinement. These moments are more alluded to in this video than demonstrated and I assume more to be covered in subsequent videos.

 

Check it out if you've got the extra 35 minutes to spare.

[Rodney]

Kinematic SOA has just posted Mike's webinar about drawing distortion and smears in animation.

The cost is $4.95 (comes with a free cheat sheet on how to approach smears and distortion in animation)

 

There is a preview online on their site:

 

Kinematic SOA webinar: Animated Distortion and Smears

 

Edit: I purchased this webinar and after some difficulty gaining access enjoyed the video (Part I that is... the rest I haven't seen).

I'm hoping the quality of the video was bad on my end because portions were unwatchable for me.

Since these areas referred to screenshots from movies they could easily be inserted into the edited video if the issue is on their end.

All in all, well work five bucks for Mike's insight into his approach to animated distortion and smears.

Note to those purchasing: Be very patient with the opening of these videos. It took an eternity for them to open for me.

 

Their previous webinar (see topic title) can also be purchased for the same price:

 

Kinematic SOA webinar: Snappy Dialog

 

I'm gonna get these.

The price is certainly right and I want to encourage this pricing in animation training.

If animation teachers can keep the price this low every aspiring animator will have access to the training they need and the authors will (theoretically) be able to make up for the difference in price through volume sales and recompilations and collections later. Also theoretically, we'll all be better animators once we've absorbed the lessons fully.