Animating Mouth of real footage

[Jason Milligan]

Sure.
It would vary depending on your source material and personal preferences.
Assuming you are using a video source, you could try using time-remapping to acquire the rough mouth movements you want. Then, mask them and overlay them over the source video. Mesh warp and/or the puppet tool could be useful in manipulating the footage to better match the contours of the source video. I’m sure there are a variety of options that would be useful once you got started on this path.

[Laurie Turner]

Nice suggestion!
I haven’t started filming yet. I have never tried anything like this before. I was thinking of filming my niece. How would you suggest I set up the shots to accomplish good source footage for this technique?

[Jason Milligan]

You are shooting a baby, right?
Asking her to not move her head or sit still are probably pretty unlikely.
My advice is lock down the camera and shoot a lot of footage.
Take some still photos too if you can, these will be easier to comp in.

In the end, you may find it easier to manipulate the photos and then track them onto her head.
Probably, you’ll use a little of both: photos and footage.

Have fun.

[Tom Scott]

You might try putting peanut butter in her mouth. It should cause her to move her mouth (in an effort to devour the peanut butter, which sticks to the roof). That’s how they got Mr Ed to “talk”.

[Laurie Turner]

Very creative guys!
Yeah, I will have to film her for a long long time to have plenty of footage. She is one years old, so making her stay still will be tough but it can be done.

[Clint Lemaire]

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, you should wait until your child is 3 years old to give them peanut products and you should never give peanut butter to an infant, because it is a definite choking hazard. In my other life, I am a medical professional so just an FYI.

[Clint Lemaire]

Tabasco’s fine Dave. Maybe even a little amusing, but not as amusing as a lemon wedge.

[Laurie Turner]

Thanks for the heads up Clint. I did know about the peanut butter, and assumed that Tom was joking. I appreciate you posting that though, just incase others reading this thread wasn’t aware.
The good news is she is starting baby babble so I should have plenty of footage of her mouth movement. Then, hopefully, be able to apply Jason’s idea.

[Tony Bartolucci]

Is this how they accomplish the etrade talking baby?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdfvWAp5GUw