Week 6 Continued Facial expressions and eye blinks

If you have not already done so, add more detail to the facial animation by adding the mouth expressions that are driven by emotional changes as opposed to dialogue. Sad to happy etc. Use the same keys as the brows where possible. Add new keys if necessary. Study your reference carefully! Pay particular attention to the use of asymmetry to achieve a more natural expression. Now is a good time to add eye blinks. Blinks are a great device in signaling a change of emotion in a character.

Homework: Start a conversation with somebody and watch when they blink.

Eye Blinks: Notes from 'IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE' by Walter Murch

Our rate of blinking is geared to

• our emotional state
• the nature and frequency of our thoughts

Even if there is no head movement the blink is

• something that helps an internal separation of thoughts to take place
• an involuntary reflex accompanying the mental separation that is taking place anyway

Start a conversation with somebody and watch when they blink.

• they will blink at the precise moment when the listener realizer our introduction is finished and now we are going to say something significant
• it will happen when they feel we are winding down and not going to say anything more significant for the moment

We entertain an idea, or a linked sequence of ideas and we blink to separate and punctuate that idea from what follows.

There are places in a conversation where it seems we almost physically cannot blink or turn our heads since we are receiving important information, and there are other places where we must blink or turn away in order to make better sense of what we have received.

quote from Gene Hackman "the Conversation"

"If it is true that our rates and rhythms of blinking refer directly to the rhythm and sequence of our inner emotions and thoughts, then those rates and rhythms are insights into our inner selves and therefore as characteristic of each of us as our signatures. So if an actor is successful at projecting himself into the emotions and thoughts of a character, his blinks will naturally and spontaneously occur at the point that the character's blinks would have occurred in real life."