Datasheet

Speech Cycles n 7
shape, but as the sum of its critical components. To start, let’s talk about the two major
speech cycles.
In its simplest form, there are two distinct and separate cycles in basic sync: open and
closed, as in jaw movement, and narrow and wide, as in lip movement.
When I use the word cycle, I’m merely referring to how the mouth will go from one shape to
the other and then back again. There are no other shapes along the way. The mouth will go
open, closed, open, closed; and the lips will go wide, narrow, wide, narrow.
These two cycles don’t necessarily occur at the same time, nor do they go all the way
back and forth from one extreme to the other all the time. The open-and-closed motions
generally line up with the puppet motion of the jaw, or flow of air—with almost any
sound being created—whereas the wide-and-narrow motions have more to do with the
kind of sound being created. For example, the following chart shows the Wide/Narrow
sequence you get with the sentence “Why are we watching you?”
Word Wide/NarroW SequeNce
Why Narrow, wide
Are No change in shape
We Narrow, wide
Watching Narrow, slightly wide
You Narrow
Simple, right? Now take a look at the jaw, or the Open/Closed cycle described in the
next chart. In this case, Closed refers to a position not completely closed, but closer to
closed than to open.
Word opeN/cloSed SequeNce
Why Closed, open, closed
Are Closed, open, closed
We Closed, slightly open
Watching Closed, open, closed, slightly
open, closed
You Closed; no change
That’s it for the essentials. The backbone of this book’s lip-sync technique has to do with
this simple analysis of the Wide/Narrow and Open/Closed cycles. You will be adding more
and more layers to create complex, believable performances, but that is all going to be based
upon this foundation. Taking the lead from the human mouth, I’ve based this approach on
the “simpler is better” mindset. Your mouth is lazy. If it can say something with less effort,
it will. In contrast, you’ve probably had textbooks, teachers, and/or tutorials tell you that for
good sync, you need shape keys that include things like G. My question is, why would you
build a shape for or pay any special attention to the letter G? Whether it’s a hard G or a soft
G, you can say it with your mouth in any of the shapes shown in Figure 1.3.
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