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Selling reality: the role of sound in creating narrative reality within animated film and visual effect sequences.Abstract: Sinc
e the development of the sound film in 1927 the use of sound in animated entertainment has increased in sophistication, complementary with developments in creating the visual image. As filmmaking endlessly strives for increasingly sophisticated imagery, high definition projection and 3D stereoscopic presentation, does this equate to an emphasis of ‘reality’ in sound design for animated features and visual effect sequences? Or is there still the opportunity to celebrate the distinctiveness of this audio-visual medium? This paper discusses the evolution of the animation soundtrack, suggesting areas of consideration to maintain the unique relationship between sound and image in animated film.Biographical statement: Peter Hodges is Head of Animation at the University of Glamorgan’s Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries. He established the now internationally recognised, Skillset accredited animation programme in 1993 and has lectured for twenty-two years in audio-visual practice, primarily in animation production and sound studies.
AUDIOMATION: Animation Film Music in the Brave New Era
Abstract: Studies
of animation visual styles, industrial processes and histories are well advanced, but the contribution of music to animation film is still often marginalized, forgotten or trivialised. This paper provides a brief survey of the field of animation film music analysis and approaches to research. Critical engagement with the industrial practices, texts and auteurial forms of animation film music has barely caught up with experimental historical precedents, much less the current era of converged animation productions. The paper argues that animation music studies must evolve with the form to engage with animated forms of the future.
Biographical Statement: Dr Rebecca Coyle is Director of Research for the School of Arts and Social Sciences and teaches in the Media Program at Southern Cross University, Australia. Her Drawn to Sound: Animation Film Music and Sonicity will be published by Equinox (UK) in 2009, and has recently edited a special issue of Animation Journal (published 2009) on sound in animation film and television. She has edited two anthologies on Australian cinema soundtracks, Screen Scores (Allen & Unwin, 1998) and Reel Tracks (John Libbey, 2005), and is currently researching film music production within an Australian Research Council funded project.
The Role of the Minimalist Musical Aesthetic in the Line Films of Norman McLaren
Abstract: Th
e role of music in visual music films has, in general, been neglected when analysing visual music textually and if discussed it has been examined predominantly from the academic vantage points of art and avant-garde film theory. To adequately scrutinise these texts I feel it is essential to look at them not only in terms of their existence as ‘moving pictures’ but that equal weight be accorded to their aural aspect and that they should be considered in terms of specifically musical parameters. This paper will examine Norman McLaren’s three Line films Lines Vertical (1960), Lines Horizontal (1962) and Lines Vertical (1965) from a musical perspective. McLaren claimed that the structure of these films was influenced by the structure of Eastern music and therefore I would posit that the orchestration of McLaren’s minimalist images has a parallel in American minimalist music of the 1960s.Biographical statement: Aimée Mollaghan is currently researching a PhD on the subject of the visual music film in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies in Glasgow University. She has a BA in Film and Video from University of Wales, Newport/IFSW and an MPhil in 2D/3D Motion Graphics from Glasgow School of Art. This paper fits into her wider interest in the role of sound in experimental film and animation. She has directed short films and documentaries and worked as a freelance sound recordist and animator.
Cross-modal verification, weak synaesthesia, and the case of visual music.
Abstract: To most v
iewers, the enjoyment of both animation and live-action film is largely contingent on the comprehension of a conventional narrative. As such, the abstract films of Oskar Fishinger, Len Lye and others should be highly esoteric - yet one may contend that they are more accessible than most films within the avant-garde. My paper will address this disparity by drawing from research within cognitive science to account for the appeal of visual music. I will outline, in an accessible way, two cognitive procedures that every human is hard-wired with that visual music exploits. One is called cross-modal verification, and the other is cross-modal abstraction.
Biographical statement: I started my PhD in January 2007 at Kent University. As of 2010, I will be in my writing-up year. Prior to this, I studied filmmaking at Salford University and worked as a freelance editor. My thesis examines spectatorship of avant-garde film within the framework of cognitive science. Audio-visual relations are explored as well as narrative comprehension. Animation comprises a significant, though not exclusive part of my research. This proposed paper draws the main ideas from two different chapters of my thesis, both of which address visual music.
e the development of the sound film in 1927 the use of sound in animated entertainment has increased in sophistication, complementary with developments in creating the visual image. As filmmaking endlessly strives for increasingly sophisticated imagery, high definition projection and 3D stereoscopic presentation, does this equate to an emphasis of ‘reality’ in sound design for animated features and visual effect sequences? Or is there still the opportunity to celebrate the distinctiveness of this audio-visual medium? This paper discusses the evolution of the animation soundtrack, suggesting areas of consideration to maintain the unique relationship between sound and image in animated film.
