Daniel’s Top Blog for CMT

Heres the link to my cartoon on youtube… for some reason the video is a bit messed up for the first few seconds, but it sorts itself out and you can still get the basic idea.

Click here to see cartoon!

From very early on in this module I knew the opportunity to put sound to a cartoon would arise. I have always been a fan of the very old mickey mouse cartoons as that style of animation still seems so exciting and expressive, particularly when compared to later mickey mouse shorts. However, finding an extract in which there was no speech but a good story was incredibly hard and I must have seen 50 odd cartoons from start to finish before seeing the clip I chose.

The first thing I decided when approaching the soundtrack was that as well as needing 3 or 4 short musical themes, including one prominent theme for the start and finish, I would also need countless sound effects. Having watched the cartoon numerous times I had decided upon a list of sound effects required. I then went about making as many as I could simply using my voice and various Logic plug ins. For example, I was able to get the heart beat sound by recording myself imitating a heartbeat along to the cartoon and then adding a very wet-mixed reverb. I also used my own voice for the ‘aahh’ required for both characters during the ‘tongue exam’ joke. For the examiner I simply pitched my voice down a fourth or so, and for mickey I pitched it up a whole octave. For mickey’s bit this includes the choking sounds and the gulp when he finally swallows his tongue back up again. 

However, there where some moments that I needed to get sound effects in from elsewhere, including the slide whistle and rattle sounds. In order to get these I used the free sound project which is in the links section to the right…..

There where also many moments when I felt the sound effect should be musical…. for example a Xylophone or woodblock found in the Orchestral Kit and it was these two samplers that where the first two instruments I added. I predominantly used these to accentuate mickey’s movements as the short, sharp, high pitched nature of the sound is very fitting to mickey’s character and behavior. In contrast, I also decided much heftier instruments would fit with the examiners movements much better.

I understand that without seeing the cartoon a lot of these comments may be very confusing to say the least and I will try and upload a link to a roughly finished version after posting this! Cheers.

The other day me, pete and ryan went into the studio to record three sets of voices, giving each of us one try and the mic positioning and leveling and therefore we came away with one set of voices each. I found that getting a good sound from the microphones was not hard and providing the lines where being spoken directly into the mic I got a fairly full response. However I did realise that recording speech rather than singing presents even more of a challenge when leveling. Given the fact that voice acting requires a very expressive tone in order to get a point across without seeing the actor, the amplitude of the input was sometimes very loud and at others far too quiet. I decided in the end that rather than have the input incredibly low in order to catch everything without clipping, I would get better recordings if I found a level that could get most of what was said and then the few lines that clipped where rerecorded. This meant I got a good balance between a loud recording and an expressive voice performance.

I plan on editing the recordings down this afternoon using Logic which should not be too difficult or time consuming.

Recently I have been interested in alot of early 20th century composers of string quartets, in particular Shostakovich. Thinking about how to use strings here made me think of his unique approach to discordant harmony and counterpoint and I have heavily used this as an inspiration for the opening 15-20 seconds of my soundtrack. For the second half however I decided to depart from this style on the whole in order to help to give a sense of progression. In order to create a contrast between the two sections I introduced heavy drums, with an almost tribal feel, and some tape reel samples which seem to work well as they add to the percussive theme and also help tie the other percussion into the film itself. I found the transition was too sudden though and the piece felt very much like two distinct halves. However, bringing a very harsh staccato violin line into the transition helped bridge the gap and also set up a more rhythmic feel for the drums to work with. This descending staccato theme is imitated, again in the violin, at about 25 seconds in, to create further continuity and punctuate the change of shot into the close up of the film reel. I feel it helps give the impression of the fast movement of the filmstrip.

I added a chordal synth part very low in pitch to this section in order to further bulk up the texture and create more contrast. I hope it does this without completely detaching the ending from the opening as it is fairly low in the mix and a synth sound that is somewhat similar to the timbre of strings.

In order to further create just enough continuity between the two sections I added low level strings under the percussion, samples and synth punctuating the harmony set out by the synth. I also added a high pitched drone in the violin part to almost take the listeners attention away from the harmony underneath. This hopefully helps to bring the percussive elements to the forefront of the feel of the section. 

The biggest challenge here was joining the two sections smoothly, but I felt they did need to sound fairly different to reflect the changes in the images. I still may wish to refine this transition in the future if it is to make up part of my portfolio.

On a different note, this mornings workshop on cartoons was really interesting, particularly the idea of writing for a larger orchestral ensemble and having much less abstract footage to compose to. More on my exploits in this area to come…… 

Following the work in last Wednesday’s lecture I began work on the editing task for Production and Recording for Musicians. Having used Logic 5 and 7 alot the past 2 or so years following the instructions on the blog was not too tricky. Learning properly how to use the beat mapping facilities in Logic 8 was satisfying though as the ‘bar line dragging’ system is so well designed and easy to use, and I had not ever come across it before.

In this mornings session I managed to get a fairly finished bounce done although seeing how to add a curve to automated fades I may go back and tweak some of them before submitting. Overall the task was a good introduction to some of the subtle differences in Logic 8 and now I just want to see what else it can do. And, in contrast, seeing Pro Tools on the go next week should be a giggle too.

Daniel

Hey y’all, welcome to my brand new blog, I hope it brings you as much joy as it already has me. Feel free to contribute and comment here whenever the inspiration hits you. Here is a question to get you going… Did anyone else find the examples of past work this morning scarily good? Inspiring stuff though…

Not much else to say here except bring on the foley!

Daniel