FLASH and dialogue sync. What does it take to get dialogue sync? How hard is it?

An overview of 4 popular lip sync solutions:
1. X-sheets.
2. Hand animation with FLASH and swapping nested symbols. teaches nested animations.
3. Toon Boom Animation Studio. Auto sync software solution.
4. "Easy Sync" The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators Flash based system for dialogue sync. And it's faster by about 100x than each of the above systems. So easy a child can do it!

Animated films did not always have sound or even care about it. They were hugely popular without a drop of sound. But one man changed all that. His name was Walt Disney. He died in 1966 and was a revolutionary filmmaker and animator. He had vision. He had new cutting edge ideas.

Walt Disney was first to base with adding music to Animated films. His studio, by being the first to put sound into a animated film, became the #1 studio in the world and leap frogged ahead of Warner Brothers, Universal and all the other animation studios. Warner Brothers tried to buy him out right after he released his first "sound" animated film. He revolutionized the animation industry by adding sound to animated films and put a lock hold on being the #1 animation movie producer in the industry. A title Walt Disney studio's still hold today. The idea of adding sound to an animated film was so cutting edge he was unable to sell the cartoons for almost a year after he first produced them. "Sound" was considered a potential "turn off" to movie goers. Boy were they wrong. But the gamble paid off and sound was a big hit with audiences and still is! Music and animation, are like bacon and eggs, they together really well, and people love it!

And syncing the sound nearly broke Disney. Try as they might they could not get the sound to sync. The cost of hiring musicians forced Disney to mortgage his home! He laid it all on the line to get "sound sync" in his film.

Amazingly sync has not come too far in 90 years. It still takes time to learn to do it, and is usually only entrusted to an experienced animator. Sound sync is the last thing (usually) done on a modern animated film. An animator goes frame to frame and swaps symbols or "nested symbols" to create the illusion of speech. Toon Boom, inside it's software has a self "sync engine. But all of this take complicated set up. And each time you change a scene (which can be a second) you have to reset up the "mouth" library. And since FLASH is used in 99% of most studios, learning to use Toon Boom as a production tool is not a smart idea.

The animation industry is working in Flash according to Master Macromedia animator (he wrote the book on FLASH) Adobe Certified Expert (mudbubble.com keyframer.com). He has worked on hundred's of TV shows and commercials and says,"Everything is built in Flash."

What does the world's #1 Flash expert, Adobe Certified Expert, say about modern lip syncing? "Lip-syncing is tedious. No animator looks forward to it. It's up there with painting your house or dental maintenance. Through years of animating in Flash, I have developed a better and faster way to lip-syncing in Flash. This isn't another "How to swap symbols" tutorial. I'm talking about controlling nested animations with the Properties Inspector and saving yourself a few extra clicks per symbol swap, regardless of your skill level. This same technique can be used to control most anything including eye expressions, head turns, gestures and whatever else you can imagine"

As it turns out The Flash expert tutorial featuring a better and faster way to do lip sync is in fact an animator swapping "nested symbols" from the library and specifying keyframes from the nested animations. There are several problems with all of this. First you have to be a FLASH expert (know the program well) to use this "better and faster" method of making a character talk. And that curve cold take a long time. To hear The Flash expertsay all this in audio check this link to his thoughts on lip sync here,

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/lipsync_macrochat.html. The Flash expert teaches the nested animation swap technique in this tutorial from 2005. And this is the only lip sync tutorial Adobe has released in the last 5 years.

But what if you wanted an easy way to sync dialogue? Is there an easy way to sync dialogue without using a complicated system that assumes you are a FLASH expert? Can you sync dialogue without being an FLASH expert like The Flash expert Georges? Yes, you can.

The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators teaches a Flash based system for dialogue sync so easy, a child can use it in minutes! "Easy Sync" makes it possible for anyone to perfectly sync a film without any technical skill. Yes, you can sync your animated film without being a FLASH expert, in about 1/100 of the time it takes everyone doing it the "old" way. Yes, without using complicated timelines and nested symbols you can quickly sync your Flash animations. We like things simple and easy and " Easy Sync" is the perfect solution for people that are beginners, or FLASH users that just want an EASY SYNC solution.

Unlike Toon Boom "Animate Pro" at $1,999 with it's "auto sync", The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators offers a FLASH based solution that works for anyone at $149.00. Toon Boom "Animation Studio" or Toon Boom Animate, at $699 is slightly cheaper than and is just as time consuming to set up. They make the process seem easy on the You Tube videos I have watched, but in application, it's so complicated I gave up. The learning curve it steep. I am sure, Toon Boom "Animation Studio" at $1,999 is worth every dime, but I don't have the extra $2,000 to sync my films and learn a new piece of software. And if you figure out how to prepare all the files..first you have to draw all the instances of the mouth, for each scene and then create a library of phonic sounds that connect to the mouth shapes. If that sounds complicated, you are correct. Like the world's #1 Flash expert, Adobe Certified Expert I decided that the time to learn Toon Boom and leave FLASH was just not worth it.

I have to say that when I first saw the Toon Boom demo on lip sync I was impressed. It sure looks like it's worth $2,000. And it looks easy on that You Tube video! Yes, it looks easy till you have to set it all up. What does the world's #1 Flash expert, Adobe Certified Expert, say about Toon Boom? "Complicated to learn. And works on a different metaphor than FLASH. And I can't make money working in that software. The industry in working in FLASH" Gee, if the world's #1 Flash expert, Adobe Certified Expert, thinks Toon Boom is complicated..how are you going to do with it?

What about lip sync with an X-sheet? Ryan Simmons teaches this traditional (about 90 years old now) and time consuming method (check out the tutorial he sells them in Quick Time format) on his website. Let me warn you, there is nothing remotely "fast" about lip syncing a movie this way. And with the "Ryan Simmons" system you have to literally retype the script into FLASH timeline and hand animate each frame. Retyping the script into FLASH! Talk about burning up hours and hours of your life. I was shocked this is a "choice" for individuals. Do x-shirts work? Of course they do! Walt Disney invented them. Just 90 years ago. What else about lip sync with an X-sheet? Besides being hard?? Well, obviously, this is not an "easy" or fast solution, but it does work, and in 1935, this really was the cutting edge way to lip sync a film. Today this method is by far the most time consuming, labor intensive, and only feasible for large studios with dedicated teams of people to animate the film. But of course, timing out every split second of the film, works, if you have the time and a really good stop watch and calculator.

My advice is to focus on being creative, and making cool animated films and not torture yourself with lip sync. Attend The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators and make your life sweet. Reduce your technical load. Forget about the technical aspects of lip sync, x-sheets and so on. Rather than take weeks to sync a animated short film, time that you could be making another film, how about syncing a one hour film in ONE HOUR?? Or a 5 minute film, in 5 minutes? And do it, without stress, without time sheets, without a stop watch, without being an animation "expert". That is what "Easy Sync" can do for you. Make you life easier. How would that appeal to you? "Easy sync" has changed the workflow for 100's of animators and it can work for you. Save hours and hours of your precious time.

For animators looking for a fast and accurate lip sync solution without using a stop watch or retyping the script into FLASH (I can't imagine doing that, however, that is exactly what by Ryan Simmons owner of cartoonsolutions.com/ suggests you do!). We don't suggest you do that one either.

The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators teaches digital animation from the ground up. Teaching a streamlined, limited animation approach, to creating dynamic animated films. Wonderful for beginners, perfect for kids from ages 10 to 60 with an interest in making animated films. The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators teaches "Easy Sync", a quick, easy to do, easy to learn, way to make, fully synced animated films fast. Do you need to sync dialogue easily?Or fast? Then The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators is for you. The best investment you can make in yourself if you want to learn what Walt Disney does not know..