Acting and Recording

For reference I've recorded my girlfriend acting out the clip. This is going to help me with eye movements and gestures that I may not have noticed or done when animating myself, obviously I'm going to interpret the animation in my own way, but this will serve as a good basis to build on. We took about 14 takes, and this was the most successful one, it was a lot harder to do thatn I thought it would be. Please excuse the poor quality of the clip, I haven't had much time to play around with compression settings. I may upload another version in time. Needless to say the original is a lot more readable and you can see her eye movements and such.

EDIT: Also the sound is incredibly low, I'll upload a better version soon.

The clip is here.

Script Done!

The audio has now been converted into script form and I've added a few unique bits and bobs in there to add more of a story to the piece rather than just an exercise in lip sync. The character has also changed again in my mind to a spider, yes I said I was fickle. Going to give the script to my girlfriend who is a bit of an actress for her to act it out for me on Friday, embarassing videos to follow. The script is below (Excuse the formatting, this blog compresses it a bit):

Likes and Dislikes

by

James Stone

INT. GARDEN - DAY

SPIDER is sitting on a chair being interviewed; she is looking intently into the camera.

SPIDER

Yes, I like to play tennis.

A fly flies into shot and distracts SPIDER mildly.

SPIDER (CONT’D)

Erm, I like to...

The fly continues to hover around. SPIDER slowly tracks the fly with her eyes. SPIDER now focuses her attention on the camera.

SPIDER (CONT’D)

Erm, go to the gym. Erm, I like to play music, and I like to paint, and to knit and sow...

SPIDER giggles to herself.

SPIDER (CONT’D)

And I love swimming.

SPIDER pauses and giggles slightly. Fly lands on some droppings in the background.

SPIDER

To be honest I hate wasps, I hate bees. Erm...

SPIDER looks at fly and then turns to face the camera again slightly angered.

SPIDER (CONT’D)

I hate dirty flies...Especially flies from London, they’re particularly viscous...

SPIDER looks over shoulder at fly and then turns to face the camera again.

SPIDER (CONT’D)

And they just, you know, they just don’t get the hint we don’t want them round.

Fickleness...

Being the fickle person I am, the thought of rigging and animating a charcter with 8 legs has scared me a bit. I think I'm now going to lean towards something like a ladybird. Hopeullfy I'm going to sketch tommorrow and see what comes up.

Permission Gained

Obtained official written permission today from the actress Laoise O'Hanlon today! So with the audio in the bag I can continue to act out and storyboard my animation.