I personally really like this in class exercise because of the unexpected work that I've got from other peers.
In order to connect the text animation and the character animation that was made from different words, I looked for the word that could be used to interact with the character: the bird. Fortunately, the animation of the bird that is locked in the cage is related to the words "help me" in the text animation.
On the first attempt, I tested 2 directions of the footages. I put the character animation before the text animation and vice versa to see which works best to build the connection between them. I then decided to put the text animation before the bird animation because it makes a better logic.
In the first test, I used only the words "help me" once in order to 'speak' for the bird. I then animate the words' movement accordingly to the bird's movement. However, this makes the text more tricky to read since it has its own initial movement as well.
In the second test, I duplicated the text and introduced it repeatedly at increasing speed to build up the tension and describe how desperate the bird was.
Although there are various direction to play around with the text and the bird,t his is my iteration for this in class exercise with a time limit.
Jenny and I were having a great time looking at the piece :D