All About Lipsync
Decoding Speech Systems in Animation, Automation, and AI
Is your lipsync uncanny because you don’t know how speech works? Learn to diagnose core issues in automated systems and produce natural results. From linguistic foundations to modular FACS blendshape formulas.
This Course Includes
- A blueprint for building and QA-ing speech
- Lecture videos with Q&A options
- 300+ slides of strategies, references, & formulas
- A 5-year access period to recordings
- Downloadable PDFs for personal reference
Skill Level
Intermediate to expert
Time to complete
2 hours
Sections
8
Slides
300+
About this course
All About Lipsync is a comprehensive guide to speech mechanics. The course begins with articulation fundamentals and builds toward customizable, anatomy-driven FACS blendshape formulas. You’ll learn which visual features are essential to each sound and how to leverage that information to develop in-house systems and strategies for high-fidelity performance refinement.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to lipsync. Rather than relying on generic phoneme-to-viseme mappings, this course focuses on the underlying logic of speech and articulation, enabling you to adapt your approach to different rigs, styles, and performance contexts. Human speech is complex, and All About Lipsync equips you to work with that complexity through modular strategies that leave room for emotion, stylization, and situational nuance.
Intended audience
A: This course is designed for animators, riggers, and engineers working on automated or generative speech animation who want to understand the linguistic and anatomical logic behind lipsync. If you’ve ever questioned a viseme chart, hit the limits of existing tools, or needed to build from first principles, All About Lipsync is your blueprint. Hand-key animators who want to go deeper than muscle memory will find it just as essential.
While no prior phonetics background is required, some familiarity with animated speech or FACS is recommended.
NOTE: For the Shape Building Ingredients sections, prior FACS knowledge is helpful. You can supplement any knowledge gaps with my free FACS resources, or reach out for a course bundle discount (FACS Cram Session + All About Lipsync).
What you walk away with
- A foundation in phonetics and articulation mechanics
- Flexible FACS & blendshape-based viseme building strategies
- Self-paced lecture videos with a 5-year access period
- Q&A email support
- 300+ slides of viseme strategies, references, & blendshape formulas
- Downloadable PDF slides to keep forever
A look inside the lecture
Over 300 slides of charts, references, viseme strategies, and flexible blendshape formulas…
Broaden your understanding of lipsync through linguistic foundations, anatomical breakdowns, and FACS-based formulas.
How to get the course
On-Demand Lipsync Course
Self-paced. Start today.
$695
$
555
Save $140 now through 05/05 -
Instant-access 2-hour lecture + email Q&A
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300+ slides of strategies, references, & formulas
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5-year access to recordings
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Downloadable PDFs to keep
Cinco sale
Looking for studio lectures? Check out my live, remote workshops for teams.
Syllabus
1 Lesson | 8 Sections
- What is phonetics?
- What is a phoneme?
- What is a grapheme?
- What is a viseme?
- What is a consonant?
- Consonants classifications & how to assess primary consonant features from IPA charts
- What are the viseme categories for consonants?
- Intro to the Core Viseme Principles
- What consonants should we prioritize & why?
- How to leverage phonemic features to create variable phoneme-to-viseme groupings
- Core viseme groups
- How to not confuse graphemes from phonemes
- “Rules” for each group
- How to build each shape
- How to NOT build each shape
- What is a vowel?
- Vowel classifications & how to assess primary vowel features from IPA charts
- What are the viseme categories for vowels?
- What vowels should we prioritize & why?
- How to build rounded vowel shapes
- How to build widened vowels shapes
- How to build relaxed vowels shapes
- Reshaping your views of emotional speech
- FACS-based action unit formulas for surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, anger, & happiness
- Breaking down rounding shape ingredients
- Visual references and breakdowns of:
- lip funneler + upper lip raiser + lower lip depressor
- lip pucker + lip funneler
- lip pucker + lip cincher
- Lip presser & other actions that assist in increasing lip compression
- Rounding vs. spreading neighbors
- Stepping away from ideas of absolute position and embracing relative position thinking
- Visual example walkthrough
- Observing visual outcomes of various phonemes in different contexts
- Biomechanical efficiency principles
About the instructor
Hi! I’m Melinda, a consultant and educator on all things face-related. I specialize in facial expressions, FACS (Facial Action Coding System), and facial anatomy. My background in faces originated in academia, migrated to tech, and now lives in the space between art, science, and technology.
I apply my expression expertise to a range of industries (film, game, tech, etc.) and products/media (Emoji, AR/VR face tracking, AAA game characters, photoreal animals, AI, deepfake technologies, etc.). If it has a face, you’re in the right place.
Explore my multidisciplinary project history below.
- Here – AI Facial Expression Consultant with Metaphysic (film, credited)
- Watch the Skies – AI-based Lipsync Expert (film, credited)
- Jane, Apple+ TV – Primate Expression Consultant (show, credited)
- Gigi & Nate – Primate Expression Consultant (film, uncredited)
- Notorious B.I.G. HyperModel by Hyperreal – Expression Researcher
- Meta Quest Pro, face tracking – Expression Researcher & Expression Data Specialist
- System and method for applying an expression to an avatar (patent 10970907) – Co-inventor
- Systems and methods for improving animation of computer-generated avatars (patent 11270487) – Co-inventor
- Systems and methods for improving animation of computer-generated avatars (patent 11468616) – Co-inventor
- Oculus LipSync – Expression Researcher
- Facebook Care reaction – Emoji Expression Consultant
- Facebook Emoji Sets – Emoji Expression Consultant
- Facebook Newsfeed Reactions – Emoji Expression Consultant
- Facebook Feeling/Activity – Emoji Expression Consultant
All About Lipsync testimonials
It’s clear that it’s difficult to narrow down lipsync and facial animation to some basic rules, but [Melinda] give[s] them anyway. First we learn the rules before trying to break them. The visual examples, especially on FACS combinations, are a highlight. It’s a very focused course that is useful immediately, no matter what level your knowledge about lipsync is.
Studio testimonials (from other courses)
Mark Flanagan
Animation Education & Training Manager
Workshops with Epic Games & Netflix
I’ve had the great privilege of working with Melinda at my last 2 companies, Netflix and Epic Games. I have no hesitation in recommending her to anyone wanting to increase their knowledge, understanding, and application of facial expressions, in particular FACS (Facial Action Coding System).
There is simply no expert in the subject who I know of with more passion, dedication and intellectual curiosity. She combines this with a talent for teaching, and a gift for explaining via personal demonstration.Whether as a consultant, or a lecturer the value that she brings to any company or project is extraordinary, and I’m certain that I will be working with her again in the future. If you need to know about FACS, she is the number 1 “Goto” person in the world!
Shannon Thomas
Artist Supervisor
Workshops with Blizzard
Melinda Ozel’s knowledge of FACS is exceptional, and her classes are the best I’ve ever seen on this subject. Where she truly excels is the level at which she understands facial anatomy and expressions, how and why each shape fires, combines or breaks, but also what tone or emotion they are to convey.
Of all the the classes I’ve seen on this subject none have ever married the technical aspects with this level of artistic execution, nor explained it so clearly, enthusiastically and thoroughly as Melinda has. From the beginner level all the way to the most senior artists, I’ve witnessed everyone learn and improve from her detailed instruction. If you are seeking to learn or level up your team, I cannot recommend her enough.
Josh Dicarlo
Character Technology Director
Workshop with Insomniac Games
I’ve had the privilege of hosting one of Melinda’s Studio talks for our character development teams at Insomniac Games and I can assure you will not be disappointed! Her talks are jam packed with goods for both the novice and the professional. Highly recommend checking this out.
Whether you’re an animator trying to craft more believable performance, a character artist or TD trying to create more plausible characters or rigs, an ML engineer trying to qualitatively evaluate your research against its anatomical basis, or a supervisor / director trying to help your team squeeze every last bit of realism out of an on screen performance – there is something in this talk for you.
Holly Price
Character TD
Workshop with undisclosed studio
Melinda joined us for an incredible 2-hour FACS Cram session last month and it was one of the most informative training sessions I have ever attended! Melinda is highly skilled at presenting potentially complex information in an engaging and clear manner. Our team were left feeling educated and excited to delve deeper into FACS!
I can’t recommend Melinda’s presentation services, or plethora of exhaustive and in-depth information on her website highly enough. Don’t hesitate to contact Melinda if you are looking for any FACS training – she is an absolute pleasure to work with and a huge asset to any team education!
Individual testimonials (from other courses)
Derrick Sesson
Senior Facial Artist
This course was an extremely beneficial to my understanding of FACS. The in-depth exploration of primary shapes provided me with a deeper understanding of primary shapes and facial anatomy for my career as a facial artist in film and games. Melinda does an excellent job correcting common misconceptions, making complex concepts easier to grasp.
The diagrams and video examples were incredibly helpful, offering clear visual guidance that I could apply immediately. This course was a fantastic value for the cost, and it has significantly improved my ability to create more accurate and expressive facial shapes. Would highly recommend to anyone who’s looking deepen their understanding of FACS.
Quentin Defrance
Real-time Rigging Supervisor
If you have any interest in getting up to speed with FACS and its terminology, I can’t recommend Melinda’s FACS Cram Session enough. It’s packed with details, schematics, anatomical references and actual real-life examples that you really can’t find elsewhere and it’s all presented in a very clean and compelling way. Definitely an essential resource for anyone trying to understand or emulate facial animation.
Steven Ekholm
Senior Character Artist
Even after being recently laid off, I paid to participate in this class knowing I would learn a lot… and it was worth every penny. Melinda conveys information in a succinct, intelligent way that translates confusing elements into making perfect sense. With the added bounty of reference and resources she leaves with the attendees., it turned out to be one of those wonderful and rare experiences that really helped me to add to my expertise and inspired me to update my approach as a professional. Melinda is clearly an expert and a solid teacher, and I highly recommend learning from her.
The Cinco Sale ends May 5th. After that, it’s back to $695.