Animating Lipsync for VFX on "Underdog"

The short video above (15 minutes) is about animating dialogue and lipsync on the Disney live action film "Underdog". The VFX work was done at Cinesite (and also Framestore) in London back in 2006. As part of the development process I drew expression sheets, some of which you can see below. The purpose of these was to help the modelling department create blend shapes for the character rigs, showing a range of expressions and moods, which could then be captured in the animation.  Underdog was a great project, directed by veteran director Frederic Du Chau, with whom I had worked previously on "Quest for Camelot" and "Racing Stripes". 

Underdog Animation

You can see a clip from Underdog below:

Underdog Expression Sheets & Style Guide

In "Underdog", Shoeshine is a photo realistic beagle.  So the expressions needed to be as realistic as possible, but also as expressive as possible. 

The Brief - If Dogs Could Talk

The brief for Shoeshine (and the other dogs in the film) was that they should talk just like a real dog would talk, if dogs could talk.  So, as realistic and believable as possible.

Eyes

Shoeshine's eyes were important. As the old saying goes, "Eyes are the window to the Soul". Eyes are what the audience will look at - get the eyes right, and you are half way there.

Especially in a close-up, the eye expressions will sell the shot. 

Noses

Dog noses are very expressive too.  Dogs have a keen sense of smell, and their noses are constantly at work. 

Nostrils

Nostrils can flare and inflate, helping to punctuate accents in the dialogue. 

Blinks

In real life dogs mostly only half-blink, but on Underdog we animated full blinks, usually including the brows to get extra flexibility in the face. 

Lipsync

At Cinesite we did over 600 talking dog shots.  Our pipeline got very efficient (as you might imagine), and all the animators got very very good at lipsync. 

The trick was to get lots of flexibility into the mouth, with plenty of back-and-forth motion, to avoid the "clapper" look. 

Live Action Reference

Before animation began, the CG Team at Cinesite spent a day up at a puppy farm in Oxfordshire, filming beagles and gathering as much reference as we could get. 

Blend Shapes

This reference was hugely valuable later on when it came to creating realistic blend shapes.  The blend shapes mimicked the real-life muscle system of the dog's faces, so that we could make the lip-sync as believable as possible. 

Dialogue animation by Anand Sembhi

Lipsync & Dialogue Resources
We have many resources at Escape Studios on animating dialogue and lipsync. To get started, follow the links below:

• Why Lipsync Should be 2 Frames Ahead of the Audio
• Why Lipsync Needs Wide and Narrow Mouth Shapes
• Lipsync - Open Wide on the Big Vowels
• How to Block Out a Dialogue Shot
• Sesame St Sound Archive
• How to Animate Lipsync
• Lipsync Tutorial with Simone Giampaolo
• Animate Lipsync the Easy Way
  
• Dialogue Tutorial with Monty: "I'm Outta Here!"
• Why Animators Need "Head Muppeting"

Vimeo & Panopto Tutorial Channels

Vimeo Tutorial Channel

The Escape Studios Vimeo & Panopto Tutorial Channel is our main hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

Our tutorials cover Animation, 3D VFX, Compositing, Rigging, Motion Graphics, Storyboarding & Character Design, Unreal Engine and Cinematography.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.