The following five weeks will be into the acting part, making a close-up shot above the chest. I will mainly focus on 3-7 second animations of dialogue and facial expressions.
First, into the preparations.
The process of preparation:
1.First, I find a dialogue. Then I only listen to the voice to distinguish the speaker’s emotion instead of watching the original animation plot because this will affect the emotion of the character I analyze.
I found a Lego animation dialogue from the website:
Dialogue audio:
The dialogue lines are: “Oh wow. That was a great, inspiring legend, that you made up.”
2.After listening to the dialogue, analyze what the character is thinking and what kind of emotion it is when he says this; and then use a pen to record some emotional and psychological content of the character that I guess.
3.After speculating on the character’s psychology, I began to imagine the character’s actions when he said the words. Of course, this is also related to the fourth point. This character will have some connection with his voice and his appearance; I may give him some personality so that the content of the dialogue and the model are more cohesive.
thumbnail version1:
4.Find a rigged model.
Model from: https://discover.therookies.co/rigs/
Model picture:
5.Divide the dialogue into different beats; for example, there is a turning point in the dialogue, from low to high mood, passive to aggressive statements, etc. Therefore, I can divide this dialogue into two to three parts and further analyze what action to take through emotions.
From the dialogue I selected, the character first uses an exaggerated and praiseful tone to praise something and then turns into a very indifferent tone. This makes me feel that the first half is a mockery of the character, a false, exaggerated praise so that the latter said indifferently： oh, you made up all this!
6.After completing the above work, you can perform in front of the camera. It is challenging to integrate into this role and think about it. I may speculate on what was said in this dialogue again. This makes it easier for me to imagine the emotions and states of the characters.
I guess the content of the previous sentence of this dialogue:
A: I come from a brave place! I am a princess of a country! My father and king fought an evil dragon alone! So you believe me, I also have such strength!
B: Wow that’s awesome, what does that sound like, oh that’s all made up, idiot. Who would believe this useless content?
Notes of the dialogue emotion: Hypocritical praise, insincere, disapproval, contempt. Frown, scorn, anger, frustration.
7.Under my repeated camera performance and action changes, I tried better to express the emotions and transitions in different beats until I felt pretty good (it’s best to ask classmates and friends for opinions). I’m not happy with the acting footage so far (despite my efforts many times) because it doesn’t look exaggerated enough; I can review my performance later and exaggerate the character.
Video:
8.Next, start to draw the thumbnails. Of course, this step and the lens performance are complementary. Before the performance, I conceived a plan and drew the thumbnails’ first version. Then after taking lots of performances, I chose my final version and repainted my thumbnails, so a sketch plan is essential to help us expand our thinking.
Thumbnail version2:
9.My preparations is done, I get thumbnails, a reference record (for my performance), a rigged model (for animation), and a dialogue audio. Next week, I will work on the next part of animation blocking after getting feedback on the preparation work.