Character Monologue/ Dialogue

For this assignment you may work solo or in pairs. You'll create a 20 to 45-second video of your character speaking - this entails lip syncing as well as secondary animation - body and head movement, eye blinking, etc. You may record the audio yourself, or use an appropriated recording. (I.e., we want to make use of the skills you have developed to make your character expressive through body motion & clear poses, not just lip sync.)

WIP #1: Audio Recording + Storyboard: Choose or create a text that has a clear point, or "punchline" - it's short, but it should have a payoff! Draw up a storyboard that demonstrates character movement variation. You may either record your own audio, or use appropriated audio. For the latter, you might download audio from YouTube, or use QuickTime to record audio from your computer. Make sure the speakers are clear! You shouldn't have more than one character speaking at once, otherwise the lip sync won't work. If you record your own audio, write the script first - clearly identify the lines that will be spoken by the characters.

For the animation, we will be working in a new software: Adobe Character Animator, which allows you to "perform" the lip syc and movement via a web cam. This doesn't mean it's simple - there is a lot of setup needed to get to that point, which we'll walk through together. (For those of you who have limited prior experience with Adobe, we can work on an alternative approach in OpenToonz, or a simplified character puppet).