Preparations for presentation and the lipsync animation

It' been a while since I posted anything on the blog, but I'll try and sum up what I've been up to since Monday.
Since we just finished the first module we where told by Penny to take a day off - which I did. Tuesday was a day to relax and just enjoy animation from "the other side", meaning I put on a animation film that I've wanted to watch for a while; Cars 2. I enjoyed it quite a lot, it surprised me since I usually don't like sequels. On Wednesday I went to the lab and met up with Jørgen, Rachel R and Em from class and we took advantage of the projector there to watch a film. I had not seen "Princess and the frog" yet, so I finally got to see that one as well. I must say it was a delight to watch a Disney Classic again - Enjoyed that a lot!
Afterwards I went home and started to work on the presentation. I had a film in mind, but I was not sure if we had to have a feature film or if I could use a short for my presentation, but after a quick e-mail to Penny that was sorted out. So I am going to use Blue Sky Studios latest short; Scrat's Continental Crack up (Part Two).

- I've mentioned this one on the blog before, but since we are going to show examples of use of animation principles etc. I feel the animation in this film is very relevant.

I have also chosen the sound clip I will be using for the lipsync-task.
I chose to use the "alarm"-clip;

- "I don't mean to alarm anybody, but I think... We're being followed."

In my head I pictured a guy catching up with a group, out of breath trying to warn the rest that they are being followed. But after a lot of reference-shots on that I found that the acting and tone of voice in the clip did not match. The voice is to controlled and the breathing is heavy not rapid and "gasping for air" as it would have been if he had been running. So I threw away the first reference shots and started over.
I knew he needed to warn someone about being followed, but instead of exhaustion the heavy breathing in the clip might represent fear. So I came up with the idea that the character is talking to a group through a walkie-talkie. I could then act it out as a character who's all alone, scared, breaths heavy and almost whispers the words:




I picked out the three shots I was most satisfied with and I guess I will be using bits from each shot to find my key poses for the animation.
(I might play around with the camera angle when I start staging the scene, but I kept it pretty close to make sure I got a good look at the face and especially the lips. We have to keep the camera at shoulder-height in the animation as well.)