Racing Stripes - My First VFX

Way back in 2004 I got my first job as animation supervisor, on Frederic Du Chau's live action VFX movie "Racing Stripes" - a family film about a zebra that wants to be a racehorse.  Racing Stripes' live action was filmed mainly in South Africa - where zebras are plentiful. The VFX work was done at Digiscope in Santa Monica, with Hybride VFX in Montreal animating the two horseflies "Buzz and Scuzz".  About 30 VFX shots were also completed in London at the Peerless Camera Co.  Part of the animation process was to create expression sheets for the characters in the film, to inform the CG modelling process and to make sure the animation would be as realistic and expressive as possible. 

Buzz and Scuzz

You can see a short clip from the film here, starring the two horseflies: Buzz and Scuzz

Racing Stripes Expression Sheets & Style Guide

In "Racing Stripes", Stripes is a real zebra - in fact a number of zebras - who needed to be able to talk, using digital effects.  Like all VFX work, the digital effects needed to be invisible. 

Expressive and Appealing

The expression sheets were done to guide the animation style, which needed to be as realistic as possible, but also expressive and appealing.  

The voice talent for Stripes was Frankie Muniz. 

The Brief - If Animals Could Talk

The brief for the animals in the film was they should talk just like the real animals would talk, if only animals could talk.  So, they should be realistic and believable.

Eyes

The animal's eyes were very important. As the saying goes: "Eyes are the window to the Soul".  Eyes are what the audience will looks at; get the eyes right, and you are half way there.

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

Noses

Animals noses are very expressive too.  Horses and zebras have a keen sense of smell.

Nostrils

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

Lipsync

At Digiscope we did hundreds of talking animals shots.  Our pipeline got very efficient (as you might imagine), with each animator getting very good at lipsync. 

Mouth Shapes

The trick with the dialogue was to get lots of flexibility into the mouth to avoid the "clapper" look - lots of forward ("ooh") and back ("ee") shapes to add texture. 

--- Alex

Lipsync & Dialogue Resources

Dialogue shot by Escapee Rich Jeffery

We have many resources at Escape Studios on animating dialogue and lipsync. To find out more, follow the links below:

• 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
• Animate Lipsync - The Easy Way
• Why Animators Need "Head Muppeting"
• Why Animators Should Hold Ms Bs and Ps for Two Frames
• How to Animate Lipsync - With No Lips

Lipsync Tutorials

Animation by Escapee Anand Sembhi

Also see the tutorials below on animating dialogue and lipsync:

• Lipsync Tutorial with Simone Giampaolo
• Animate Monty Singing "Oh Yeah!"
• Lipsync Tutorial with Marc Stevenson
• Dialogue Tutorial with Monty: "I'm Outta Here!"
• Animate a Sneeze with Monty: "Ah-Choo!"

Vimeo and Panopto Tutorial Channels
The Escape Studios Tutorial Libraries (Vimeo and Panopto) are our main hubs 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. Many hundreds of tutorials can be found at our Vimeo and Panopto Libraries.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. 

To apply for one of our courses, follow this link.