Chatter workshop
In this workshop about dialogue, animation students are introduced to a variety of drama exercises aimed to promote an understanding of the physical and verbal interaction involved when people talk to one another. They are then invited to record themselves making polite conversation, to select a short snippet of speech, to design a character that might speak these lines and to animate talking heads that lipsync to the recorded words. The chattering characters are then combined in an installation to make meaningless dialogue with one another.
Students learn about how to animate both speaking and listening behaviour as well as technical aspects of lip synchronisation and facial animation. They are also asked to consider wider issues of how people communicate through the ephemeral, multi-lingual, global discourse of social media.
The photos are from Tom Sito's character animation class at USC, who participated in one of the workshops along with students from PgDip Character Animation students from Central Saint Martins.