We invented a new method of using live animation to animate a still portrait photo, for a meeting planner's private party.

It's called the "Nixon Effect" for the first character we tried, and since then, it has been used successfully to come up with custom characters while avoiding the stiff costs of 3D artwork.

   

It's Cut and Paste on a Portrait to Make it Talk

The quality of the professional photography can be important when it comes to this effect. Good images have good strong eye contact and are well-lit, for the most effectiveness. The image above on the left is the photo we got from stock files and the image on the right is a portion of the CHOPS texture map with the mouth lined up to match CHOPS' mouth. Then we cut a hole in the portrait, put it on the overlay layer and show just CHOPS' new mouth behind it.

The effect is a little weird and funny, when the perfectly still photo portrait starts talking and interacting. At this party where Nixon was booked, the party planner provided a gilded frame, a plasma screen, blue drape and a front man dressed up as "Deep Throat" to finish off the presentation. The theme of the party was "Politically Incorrect," and Nixon's office was "bugged" with inflated insects.

Nixon comes alive with an old speech to demonstrate this effect

In order to make this clip, we played an old Nixon speech and let our system do the lip sync from the sounds of the voice, automatically.

We posted this animation on Aniboom to demonstrate the technique with an old black and white photo

Gary Jesch provides the voice for Thomas A. Edison's portrait in live animation, in a variation of the same method. Some call this the "Clutch Cargo" effect as seen on Conan's Late Night Show, however, for us, there is no video studio or camera equipment involved.

This method allows us to provide unique characters without having to develop them in 3D Max, and incurring the costs of modeling, rigging and animation. In most cases, we can include the costs of developing this in the overall performance fee. Another interesting aspect of this presentation is how we can use a plasma or LCD screen mounted on its side in "portrait" mode, creating another look for a standard video display.

Puppeteering is also very easy, since there are no movements or eye tracking to do, and only a few expressions where the mouth action is showing some emotion.

All artwork and titles are copyright 2008 - CHOPS & Assoc. Live Animation. All rights reserved.