Whoa…very cool lipsync lesson- Aardman style

This is like finding a $100 on the sidewalk. How is it that I never saw this when it first came out?

Stefan Marjoram offers a quick tutorial on doing lipsync in Maya in the Aardman style. It includes his incremental Maya work files and the sound track, too!! Of all the studios in existence today the one whose work I enjoy more than any is Aardman. Yes, even more than Pixar, though I’ve heard they’re pretty good, too (StudioAKA, home of director Marc Craste, would probably be my third choice. After than I probably stop keeping track). Second, after seeing his short film The Deadline I’ve been a fan of Stefan’s approach to animated acting. He has the impeccable ability to find those little subtle things and bring them out of the audio track in a fun and unique way (something he talks about briefly in his tutorial, by the way). His characters have such amazing sense of depth and life to them and he uses the simplest of methods to pull it off. He’s one of those super talented guys who can’t seem to make anything I don’t like. So to be able to poke around in some of his work files- well, I kinda geeked on it. His method of manipulating the puppet is rudimentary compared to higher end GUI’s and controls, but to see the principles of how he builds his performance under the hood was like a small treasure. My guess is this tutorial was first published a few years back. Anyhow, if you want to try a different, fun, interpretive approach to facial animation with an Aardman flair, then check this tutorial out. You won’t be sorry.