This week was spent exploring sound and text animation in motion design, as well as doing the production and post production for my full stop-motion animation.

Reading & Writing: Sound and Design Rules

The first chapter for this week in Liz Blazer’s Animated Storytelling concerned every aspect of sound in animation. She emphasized the idea that sound is a result of all of the action on screen, so the audience expects it to be there. Not only do they expect it to be there, but they expect it to be there right when it’s supposed to be there – timing means making either an undetectable sound design (as it should be) or making the audience feel off.

Blazer argues that sound should not only be heavily considered when making an animated film, but that it should be the main concern – sound should lead the story, rather than the other way around. She suggests picking a soundtrack (regardless of whether it will be in your film or not) that matched the mood of what you are going for.

From there, you pick your sound effects and music to best match the emotion and action of the scenes. It is a good idea to match certain audio motifs with characters or ideas that are presented throughout your story. It is also important to consider contrasting the scene to cause discomfort when the story calls for it – audio can be much more powerful than many audience members realize.

Dialogue is something that is best to be avoided since you should do your best to express the story visually. If that is not possible, then it is vital to make the dialogue as natural as possible – each line that comes out of a character’s mouth should match that character and the mood should be easily detected from the pacing of the dialogue (short and snappy for a tense mood, long and “musical” for a happy mood, ect.).

Narration and voiceover, typically saved for motion graphics, should be written before animating since the total run time (TRT) is usually of upmost importance. What is said (and the visuals to match it) should be simple and brief.

The next chapter focuses in on the importance of designing the rules of the worlds you create. Audiences are willing to have a suspension of disbelief to be pulled in by even the wildest stories, but the second a rule that has been established is broken that connection between art and spectator is broken.

Time and Place are the first rules to be established. There are lots of choices when it comes to this, but you should try to pick a time and place that would create organic roadblocks and elevate the story’s conflict in some way. The same goes for Physical Laws – any physical law should be meaningful to the story, otherwise it risks just serving as a distraction.

Social Laws can be fun since there are so many places to look to for inspiration – history, nature, current societies – the list goes on. Visual Laws also allow many liberties to be taken when it comes to space, lines, shapes, colors, contrast, and texture within the world. The important thing for both of these laws, remember, it to be consistent and meaningful with you choices.

Research to Inform: Text Animation and Audio

Since I already explored examples of stop-motion animation in my last post, it is time to look at some good utilization of sound and text animation.

This first video is part of a cute animated series I stumbled upon this past summer. The reason I chose this as an example of good sound design is because of the use of sound effects and music. The soundtrack is somehow lighthearted, but hardcore at the same time – matching the whacky vibe of this short. There are also sound effects everywhere you would expect them to be – the car’s acceleration, the cannon, and the goofy sound of the boss bouncing out of the van (well, that one is the opposite of what you would expect for comedic effect). There is also ambiance of the road that I did not even notice until listening to it while listening closely for sound design, which is a great sign since good sound design is invisible.

When I think ambient sound, this music video is the first to come to mind. I remembering watching an interview with Grimes where she explained that the first part of this music video was made on a whim – the sky looked great and they were in the middle of the desert with cameras, so they decided to just go for it. The ambient-chant-like sound that she added to match her slow-motion movements set the tone for the rest of the video perfectly – it is as if you are being transported to a different, more mystical world.

Sorry for the additional Grimes video (but I am not really sorry these are wonderful). There are quite a few different things going on with the titles in this video. The first one is not animated, per se, but it is “moving” since it is transparent but with inverted colors. The next animated title comes in at 1:18, where it appears then swipes off the screen. I really do not know why I am so drawn to these titles – the animation itself is very minimal, but it is extremely stylized. I tend to prefer for minimal effects with titles since I want to pay attention to what it is trying to say. The ones in this are compelling enough where I appreciate them as art, but I am also able to understand them.

Fantastic Mr. Fox has another minimal, but highly stylized title. The reason I like this simple movement from one end of the screen to the next is for a few reasons. First of all, it matches the symmetry of the rest of the film – as the little airplane moves across the screen the title appears from the opposite direction at the same pace (this is super Wes Anderson – and I love it!). The second reason I am drawn to this title animation is because it matches the animation style of the very beginning of the film where they introduce the poem about the villains. Nothing is more satisfying that a book-ending, even one as subtle as that.

Create: Stop-Motion Animation

After many, many hours of moving pens around, snapping photos, moving pens around more, snapping more photos, and on and on and on…the animation of my non-linear story is complete! I am very happy with how it turned out, especially how I was able to synch up the “dance” to the music I had picked almost perfectly. Check it out for yourself here:

My only regrets during the production process is that I did not have a remote to take the photos with so the camera wouldn’t have those slight movements and that I did not take extra photos of moments I wanted to stay on for a second or so. Still, considering how well the timing worked out, I am very happy with my final result.

The post-production process went over well. I use Adobe Premiere to create the animation and add/edit the sound then used After Effects to create the short animation on my title. Looking at it in retrospect since I decided to go with such a simple animation I could have done it in Premiere, but the After Effects practice did not hurt.