Soundtrack

Today I completed the soundtrack for my animation this was a huge milestone for me. This is now paving the way for me to go on to write my xsheet and then create a dialogue test video using photos of the head with the different mouthshapes in place, involving no moving or acting doing this dialogue test will help me work out any kinks I may meet along the way and gives me time to go over my xsheet. These two things will be finished by christmas along with both the models and all the correct mouthshapes attached to the stage. This allows me to go into full production as soon as I come back after Christmas using my dialogue test and xsheet as a guide to complete the animation.

Frames per Beat

As I will be animating the lip sync to beatboxing that has a time signature (BPM) I will be able to match the frame rate to bpm or the bpm to frame rate. I would like to run at 24fps but this may be far to much work so I will probably work at around 12fps. As the style of beatboxing is drum n bass (which is around 160-180bpm) throughout I will try an get recording that perfectly matches the frames to the beats. To do this I had to work out how many beats per second where in 3 different speeds -160bpm, 170bpm and 180bpm the one that fit perfectly was 180bpm which at 24fps was 8fpb and at 12fps it was 4fpb, this is a nice even number for me to be working with.

Mouth

As I will be doing some complicated lip movements that move from the inside out I am going to need to push the lips from the inside like air would. I have to created this hole in the bottom of the mouth pieces so I can fit my finger in, there is also a space for a tongue.