Need help getting started with facial animations

I'm a coder, not an animator, so I need some help getting into what appears to be a confusing topic: facial animation. I have a 15 minute scenario that I'd like to give some more life to.

I've seen a lot of videos and tutorials, but many of them are using services that don't appear to exist anymore (face plus, for example). I know I need a model, some way to generate animation data, and finally a way to bring it all together in Unity. I've seen pieces/parts, but not the whole package.

Does anyone have a good tutorial that they'd recommend? Also, are there some tools that are considered must-haves?

Ideally, a marker-less motion capture to Unity would be amazing.

I'm willing to pay low-hundreds of dollars for tools/services, but many of the really professional things I've seen quickly get up to over $1,000, which is far more than I'd like to spend.

Thanks,
Blake