The Real Pirate
This post, as the title suggests, consists of the secondary research I have conducted into sound design in animation and games. As opposed to making a new post every time I do more research I will just update this one with any new notes I take, info I find interesting, etc. Each source will be headered for easy navigation and understanding.
THE CONCEPT OF “LESS IS MORE” IN VISUAL DESIGN
APPLIED TO SOUND DESIGN IN ANIMATION – Farjana Salahuddin (2021)
chapter 1.1, pg 1
“According to sound designer Randy Thom, animation movies
can be made more cinematic by avoiding wall-to-wall dialogues (Kiser, 2018). Animation films rely heavily on imagination, starting off with static storyboards which is then translated into visual moving images. This imaginative production can be made more cinematic and dramatic using abstract metaphoric sounds and ambience. According to Beauchamp (2013), metaphoric sounds are more effective to create a dramatic experience than literal sounds, and as many objects in animation do not exist; consequently, metaphoric sound is vital to characterization and plausibility of the object. Therefore, creative use of sound design in animation can validate and strengthen the personalities of the characters and the story, as well as guide the audience through a cinematic
storytelling experience.”
Chapter 2.3, pg. 7
“Sound in film or any other media is designed for the audience, which makes it necessary to understand how the audience will perceive the sound.”
Salahuddin (2021, 16)
(cont.) “Therefore, Sonnenschein (2001) states that understanding our physiological and mental capacities and limitations can be the core of applying sound design principles for films. He states the different listening modes put forward by the film theorist Michel Chion, and introduces a fourth one as follows:
- Reduced Listening – Awareness of sound from the surroundings without paying attention to the
source. - Causal Listening – Listening to sound and gathering information about the cause or source of
the sound. - Semantic Listening – Listening to sound that relates to a spoken or code language.
- Referential Listening (Introduced by Sonnenschein) – Being affected by the context of the sound
and its emotional and dramatic meaning.”
pg.8
“Kramer (1992) summarizes Bregman’s differentiation of two processes in which
the audience perceives sound: schema-driven and primitive processes. The schema-driven processes refer to the audience’s perception based off their past experiences, including understanding of languages and context of sound. Therefore, this can be tied back to the referential mode of listening introduced by Sonnenschein. Whereas the primitive processes refer to the innate perceptions of sound, like the effect produced by Archetypal sounds – chirping of birds, sound of the thunder etc.”
ch. 2.3.1
“One of the most important principles in a film’s sonic landscape is the distinction between figure (foreground) and background sounds. This distinction makes a sound pop from the rest of the soundscape, making the audience focus on that particular sound. Such distinction is achieved by the sound quality such as timbre, rather than its physical dimensions (or loudness) (Sonnenschein, 2001)”
Ch. 2.3.8 pg. 11
“According to Sonnenschein (2001), sound can be described in three levels, wherein the audience consciously listens and focuses on the first level, the second level supports the environment without demanding attention, and the third level creates a united and whole soundscape, therefore affecting us subconsciously. He also mentions that the first level can be referred to as the figure, while the second and third level as background. Therefore, appropriate placement and shift of focus between figure and ground sounds is essential in building an auditory hierarchy to narrate the story. The importance of auditory hierarchy and sonic focus have been stressed by sound designers like Walter Murch. According to Murch, our mind can focus only on a maximum of two sounds within a scene
(Sonnenschein, 2001). Therefore, a balance must be maintained between the use of dialogue, music and sound effects, depending on the intended storytelling.”
ch. 2.4
“According to Taberham (2018), “the audio operates like an echo of the physical world in an otherwise constructed landscape” (p. 131). Therefore, the sound design plays a crucial role in defining whether the film is going to sound “cartoony”, “musical”, or “live-action-like” and so on.”
ch. 2.5 pg. 13
“Since, animation films are specifically intriguing, where directors can get creative with the various modes of sound design, this paper will look at the films with the “poetic authentication” mode of sound design. In my opinion, “Less in More” visual design principles are more prevalent for this mode of sound design, as it purposefully neither includes flamboyant comic sound effects nor back-to-back dialogues, but tends to utilize various principles of sound design for effective storytelling and dramatic expression.”
Notes on sound design in contemporary animated films – Randy Thom (2013)
pg.228
“It is often assumed that creating the sound design for an animated film is more difficult than it is for live action. that is not necessarily true. In terms of sound effects, the number of individual sounds recorded, gathered form libraries, fabricated specifically for that film, and cut into mixable tracks tends to be about the same for a large-scale animated film and a large-scale live action film.”
“Stylization in the visuals and the sound allows us to focus, to be more precise and dynamic emotionally, as opposed to presenting a wall of indistinguishable sound and hoping that will translate as “exciting””
on Early Collaboration:
“There is one area in which sound for some contemporary animation is substantially more ambitious than sound for live action: early collaboration. On an increasing number of animated films, the sound designer is being asked to create speculative sounds for characters, places, and events as a way of stimulating the imaginations of the animators.” he then elaborates using his work on “how to train your dragon” as an example: “I fabricated many sounds… before any animation at all had been done for those sequences. The sounds that I made suggested possible visual imagery to the animators. Then, based on the animation they created, I modified the sounds or reworked them entirely, either of which sometimes suggested more visual possibilities”
pg.229
“There is a temptation in contemporary animation to “flesh out” the sound effects and music tracks extensively during the early work on the visuals. When the visuals are still simplle and crude, often only stick figures, elaborate and continuous music and sound effects are a useful storytelling crutch to make a sequence coherent and emotionally powerful. Unfortunately, once the visuals are complete and the crutch is no longer needed, it tends to stay. In my opinion this presents a problem of story focus. “
This legion of sounds, both concrete and musical, often tends to blunt the impact of the piece by making it less dynamic and less focused
Thom (2013, 229)
“Some supervising sound editors and and sound designers feel strongly that a film without complex and diverse ambient, atmospheric background sound effects is deficient. I couldn’t disagree more. In my opinion the “background sound style” should be congruous with that of the film as a whole. The storytelling style of some films calls for richly layered and constantly shifting background ambience; the style of others does not.” – in other words, there is no “one size fits all” approach or background sound for animation, just as the same is true with all other audiovisual projects.
cont. “The point I want to make is that each film I work on calls for its own sound design aesthetic. I try to make as few assumptions as possible at the beginning of each project, then work with the director to discover what seems to work best.”
pg.230
“The ideal result is clarity of message. The sonic landscape is not muddied up with unnecessary sounds that will tend to mask and thereby emasculate one another. The sounds are chosen carefully to make each moment “realistic” enough to be believable and emotionally on point”
“The term “realistic” is problematic as it applies to any film, especially an animated film. Directors often put a premium on “realistic” sounds in both live action and animation because they feel “adding realism” is one of sound’s principal jobs to provide a solid base for the fanciful visual images so that they don’t float away, out of control.”
pg. 231
“It is possible to have several layers of simultaneous sound as long as there is, for lack of a better description, a “loudness hierarchy” among then.”
Thom (2013, 231)
(cont.) “One technique for accomplishing this is to allocate parts of the sonic frequency spectrum to each category or group of sound. for example, car engines can occupy most of the bass end of the spectrum in a given moment, while voices occupy occupy most of the mid range of frequencies. The engine sounds therefore have to be designed to be bass intensive.”
“All of the sound crafts in film, except for that of the composer, have too often been categorized, misguidedly, as “technical” jobs. All sound people tend to be referred to as “engineers”. Though we use technology, just as all the other film crafts do, making artistic decisions is the essential role of the sound designer in animated and live-action films. We have initial discussions with animation directors about the story and the principal characters, human and nonhuman. Then we begin to fabricate and collect sounds we think may be useful for the project. Before I am ready to play a set of those sounds in sync with picture for a director, I have made literally hundreds of artistic editorial decisions about their appropriateness relative to mood, intensity, spacing, tempo, volume dynamics, and so forth. The tech we use is directly analogous to a graphics or drafting program that a production designer would use to make early drawings of a set for the director’s approval. In other words, we in the craft of sound are not simply the operators of gadgets, waiting for the director to tell us what the gadgets should do.” – In application of this I have started work on some mindmaps with basic ideas to for the creators so that we can work better to create a project they will be happy with
Salahuddin, F. (2021) THE CONCEPT OF “LESS IS MORE” IN VISUAL DESIGN
APPLIED TO SOUND DESIGN IN ANIMATION. MSc. University of Dublin. Available from https://publications.scss.tcd.ie/theses/diss/2021/TCD-SCSS-DISSERTATION-2021-015.pdf
Thom, R. (2013) Notes on sound design in contemporary animated films. In: Richardson, J., Gorbman, C. and Vernallis, C. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 227-232.
