Thomas Jiang

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Animation Screening: Derek Hoffend

14 April 2017

Today Derek Hoffman, a sound designer and associate professor came to give a short talk on sound design in lieu of an animation screening. Part of his talk concerned the classification of sound.

For a medium like animation or video games, he noted that no sound is free. Every sound, being deliberately added to an animation, can/must be thought to have a use. For instance, sound can establish a screen, foretell a character, introduce semantic meaning, etc. Sound can emphasize or establish characteristics of objects, of actions, and of locations. It can influence our perception of time and distence. For instance, equalization and volume help to establish distance. Reverb establishes the characteristics of a space.

And he introduced a vocabulary to use when discussing sound. Diagetic sound is sound that exists in the world of the animation itself. It’s sound that the characters in the animation can hear and respond to. Non-diegetic sound is sound, like narration or a soundtrack, that only the viewers can hear.

In the last half of his talk, he displayed some animations and some clips discussing sound. I found these to be incredibly interesting. Seeing clips and sounds taken out of context really helps to establish the importance of sound and it also helps to establish how incredibly associative sound is. Hearing some of the sounds from classic cartoons by themselves can lead me to conjure up images of the actions occurring. It really takes a level of creativity to both match and extend the human imagination when it comes to sound design for animation and games that I hadn’t seriouslyy considered before today.

Clips

Steamboat Willie by Walt Disney (1928) USA 7m22s

This was the first cartoon to feature a fully post-produced soundtrack and the first Disney cartoon with synchronized sound. Besides being technologically innovative, Steamboat Willie holds up. I feel as if animation has a longer shelflife than other types of film but I cannot defend this beyond a feeling.

There is a very interesting moment when Mickey begins whistling in time with non-diagetic music that feels very natural and unnatural at the same time.

The Wild Sounds of Treg Brown by Warner Bros. (2004) USA 11m

This short documentary produced by Warner Bros. about the sound effects that went into Looney Tunes. It’s interesting how technological constraints imposed by the size of sound recording equipment lead to the development of many sound effects are still used and recognized today. Treg Brown and Carl Stalling, both sound designers for Warner Bros. certainly take much of the credit for pushing animated sound effects forward.

People began developing these libraries of sound effects to use and mix and combine and create. Today people still use sound effect libraries to do the same job, only more digital. For instence, Hanna-Barbera’s Greg Watson and Pat Foley have some classic sound effects from the Flintstones and other shows.

Animation Sound Design: Building Worlds From The Sound Up by Pixar (2008) USA 18m

This short feature on the sound design and sound designer behind Wall-E can be found on the Wall-E DVD. It is a fantastic look at the history and business of making sounds. Super enlightening.

Neighbors by Norman McLaren (1952) Canada 8m

The sounds here were produced using a technique called sound-writing, which involved drawing waveforms directly onto film.

Sound by Jan Švankmajer

Balance by Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein (1989)

Found here

We pay particular attention to the reverb, echo, delay, conveying the spatial characteristics.

Street of Crocodiles by Quay Brothers (1986)

The music and sound effects in this film were produced by Leszek Jankowski