To what extent does music/a soundtrack enhance the experience of viewing animations?
This essay will discuss the relationship between sound and animation/film including music, sound effects and musicals, and how the use of sound helps to drive the narrative. Examples will comprise of silent movies such as Charlie Chaplin’s Lions cage (1928), animations such as The Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, 2005), Steamboat Willie (Walt Disney, 1928), and Nausicaä of the valley of the wind (Hayao Miyazaki,1984), and live action films such as Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
‘Film music whether it’s a pop song, improvised accompaniment, or an originally composed cue, can do a variety of things. It can establish setting, specify a particular time and place; it can fashion a mood and create atmosphere; it can call attention to elements onscreen or off screen, thus clarifying matters of plot and narrative progression; it can reinforce or foreshadow narrative developments and contribute to the way we respond to them; it can elucidate characters’ motivations and help us to know what they are thinking; it can contribute to the creation of emotions, sometimes only dimly realized in the images both for characters to emote and for audiences to feel.’ (Kalinak, 2010, page 1)
Music has always been a major part in films right from the first ever silent movie in 1891. Live music was played by a full orchestra to accompany the silent movie to engage the audience and help show what is happening in the story. For example in Charlie Chaplin’s The Lion’s Cage, (see link 1) the music matches his footsteps to show that he is creeping, not wanting to wake the lion. The high-pitched long note as Charlie finds himself face to face with a tiger helps portray his shock and fear, as we cannot hear him gasp or scream! The music becomes more frantic as he cannot find a way out and the lion is waking up.
In comparison to this good use of sound, we look at another silent movie Un Chien Andalou (1929) (see link 2) In this film, with input from Salvador Dali, there are many different shots, said to have lots of meaning or no meaning at all depending on the way you look at it. The use of sound here is very different; it does not particularly seem to be a description of the action but more a motif of emotion. There are two melodies played alternately, both sounding quite romantic in style. The melody with staccato notes and a tango rhythm (Ole Guapa) seems to be used where the man is going after the woman we think to kill her as there is a visual in the movie with ants coming form the mans palm which comes from a French phrase “ants in the palms” which is said to mean that someone is itching to kill. (IMDB) So this melody describes passion, fear, wanting, and action. The other is a more slow paced French style melody (Leibstod and Vorspiel by Richard Wagner) used to describe everything else, the less dramatic scenes. Many would say that this is over used in this film and another piece of music should have been used in scenes like when the man falls off his bike as the music seems too relaxed for this event. However when this was first made there were two physical records and one record player so they had to be switched over. Having another record might have made things even more complicated.
In 1928, Walt Disney animation studio created Steamboat Willie being the first animated film to have a soundtrack composed specifically to synchronise with it. (Disney Wiki) It was played by a couple of people in another room, piping the sound into the room with the screen. Apparently the synchronisation was actually pretty accurate!
In 1937 we were introduced to the first full-length animated musical that came in the form of Snow white and the seven dwarves. Although this was a big step for its time, being the first feature length animation, ‘it was only in 1989 with The Little Mermaid, and 1991 with the astonishingly successful Beauty and the Beast- the only animated film to ever be nominated for an academy award in the best picture category-that the animated musical became a truly mainstream genre again.’ (Coyle, 2010, Page 25)
An example of this is The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). This movie deals with a lot of issues for example, being cast out, bullying, physical differences, cultural differences and more. In The bells of Notre Dame, which is the first song we hear, there are some quite cruel things said and the visuals come across as quite scary. “Just so he's kept locked away, Where no one else can see, Even this foul creature may, Yet prove one day to be, Of use to me”
Arguably, having this description of how the Hunchback came to be up in the bell tower as a song rather than just acted makes the story easier to digest and less shocking to a younger audience. This is sometimes the aim of a musical. Much like animation can be used to portray things that are hard to watch in film but as animation they seem to be far more digestible. This may be because on both accounts, the narrative we are seeing does not seem quite as real.
Since then, many other companies other than Disney have made animated musicals. For example Tim Burton has made a few. One of which was The Corpse Bride (2005). There is a particular ticking motif in The Corpse Bride. Everything moves in the same rhythm using a harpsichord- a mechanical sounding instrument to show the pace, 'which adds to the sense of things here being mechanized and ordered rather than lively and spontaneous.' 'The dead, freed from this constraint, are far more vigorous as a result.’ This motif is used to differentiate between the living and the dead. When you hear this ticking motif, even if you cannot see a character, you know that someone alive is or will be in this scene. This helps the audience engage with the movie. (Coyle, 2010, Page 33)
However it is not just the songs that help drive the narrative in these films. Sound effects are also very necessary as you are creating an alternate reality that does not have its own background noise so it is necessary to provide these to make it seem more real. ‘The use of sound effects in film helps give weight to a large boulder that may only be made from papier-mâché or even millions of tiny pixels animated through CGI. It can give a sense of impending doom via a ticking clock that tells the audience that time is running out. Sound effects build character to a spaceship the size of Delaware that is, in fact, the size of a skateboard. On a psychological level, a sound effect can invoke fear, such as a chilling whisper or breathing sound coming from the next room of the camp counsellor’s cabin nestled in the woods of camp crystal lake.’ (Viers, 2008, Page 3)
An example of this is A Fox Tale by 4ADesertanimtion (see link 3), the use of sound effects really helps us feel like we know where this film is set and that we are there too as we can hear the birds singing and the crickets and the wind blowing. We hear every movement that is made from steps on the ground, to brushing past leaves, to water dripping from a body. All of these things help us to believe this animation. We relate to it because we are hearing everything we would expect to hear if it was real life. Nicolas Titeux did a fabulous job in creating realistic sound effects that not only work well with the animation, but actually improve it and make it an art form in its self. Without these sounds, the film would be empty, unrealistic and nowhere near as engaging no matter how beautiful the animation is.
A very good quote that shows the importance of sound effects and music in animation is-‘If animation is the process of breathing life into a character, then music infuses emotion into that life’ (Beuchamp, 2005, Page 43) As we all know, emotions make things believable, much like facial expressions. The sound effects used are also to make things believable. If you were watching a live action film where a man was sweeping the floor, you would hear the bristles scraping across the floor and the footsteps of the man and possibly his breathing if he is working hard. In animation, this does not automatically happen because it is not real, but we still expect it, therefore we need to add this in. This makes the scene more believable.
‘The early animations of Warner Brothers and MGM studios utilised sight gags to great effect. During this period, musical instruments were often substituted for traditional SFX in a design approach that is sometimes referred to as effects scoring. Chords of varied volume and dissonance were often used to exaggerate actions while also deemphasising any implied violence. Melodic themes followed the up or down motion of on-screen objects or actions (isomorphism)’. (Beuchamp, 2005, Page 45) Isomorphism is widely used across more exaggerated comical sound effects like in animations such as Loonytoons’ Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner. Very often in this cartoon Wile E falls off a very high cliff. The sound effect that always goes with this is a high pitched squeal that gets lower in pitch the further he falls. (see link 5) This shows that he is falling a very long way especially if the sound goes on for a long time. This enables us to show Wile E at different angles, even ones where we cannot see the floor, and still know he is falling from a great height.
As well as Isomorphism, we have directed sound, which can equally give us sense of space and help us know where things are in a scene. For example if you can hear an explosion closest to your left ear, that means it is happening to the left of what we can see on screen. This works best in a cinema when you have surround sound but can work just as well through headphones. This can work so well in fact that sometimes we do not even need visuals to understand what is happening for example very simply, if you are listening through headphones to footsteps that go from your left ear through to your right ear, you get the impression that someone has just walked right by you.
‘Sound effects often represent a characters outer world, whereas underscore often signifies that character’s inner world. Underscore invites the audience to perceive and respond to the emotions suggested by the narrative’ (Beuchamp, 2005, Page 45)
Some sound effects, often entwined in the music, can create intense emotions such as shock. The shrieking violin sound effect that evokes terror in its original use in the shower scene in Psycho worked so well that it is now an ‘iconic musical creation of terror’ (Kalinak, 2010, Page 15) and this sound has now become ‘a convention for terror itself, evoked in countless horror films, parodies of horror film…’ (Kalinak, 2010, Page 15) They found this representation of terror to be such a success that it is now commonly used and recognised. Such can be said for many sound effects, such as the sound for magic being an octave of glockenspiel or chimes being struck in an ascending order. Many of these types of sounds have been recognised and reproduced countless times and that is how we now have collections of sound effects such as the Hana Barbara sound effects.
‘the emotions we experience in response to music involve structures deep in the primitive, reptilian regions of the cerebellar vermis, and the amygdala-the heart of emotional processing in the cortex.’ (Levitin, 2006, page 87)
Although these sound effects that evoke emotions are highly useful and effective, silence can be just as effective in creating things like suspense, tension, loneliness and fear. The absence of sound here creates an eerie feel and you feel like something is wrong and something is going to happen. For example in The Shining when Danny is roaming around the halls in his trike. (see link 4) The only things we hear are his wheels. Although this is not complete silence, it still feels unnaturally quiet. This shows us that the house is almost empty, Danny is alone, and there is nothing to do and that something does not feel right about this place.
Soundtracks can be subtly composed to evoke specific emotions using clever musical techniques for example in Nausicaä of the valley of the wind (1984), A little girls song entitled Nausicaä Requiem, composed by Joe Hisaishi ‘used as a sub-thematic melody to suggest Nausicaä’s nostalgic recollection of her early childhood and her realisation that she could not return to this secure and happy time of her life’ (Koizumi cited in Coyle 2010, Page 64 ) this is achieved using a binary structure ‘(a-a’-b-a’) this is characteristic of nursery rhymes or some folk songs.’ Using techniques like this evoke specific feelings like nostalgia as it makes the audience subtly think of nursery rhymes without even realising it. This is a clever technique as no one consciously thinks about why the music has been composed the way it has but subconsciously their brain is remembering all the songs from your childhood, making you, at that moment, in the same mind-set as the young girl in the movie, connecting you to her and making you feel what she is feeling.
Music can also be used to create tension as described by Beauchamp (2005, page 22), when you sing a scale from the bottom up and stop at the 7th note, the note wants to ‘resolve upward. An unresolved scale is a powerful means of creating tension’ this is because the phrase seems unfinished like we are waiting for something. In the same passage we are informed that tension can also be achieved by using one instrument instead of another. ‘For example a distorted electric guitar seems to produce more tension than an alto flute. Melodic lines that are jagged rather than smooth produce more tension’.
Music in animation can also be used to describe culture. For example films like Brother Bear or Pocahontas both have Native American sounds using drums and mostly percussion instruments. And Mulan (1998) has very Chinese sounds with the use of a specific key. And Lion King (1994) has its very soulful accapella and lots of harmonies and drums like zulu choral music . It is very important that music of the specific cultures is fully explored and researched to give the best authenticity.
On the other hand, “a piece of music is not itself a narrative, for music is a non-representative art form.” (Rondolin cited in Larsen, 2007, Page 206) This asks the question: then how does it help to drive the narrative? Which in some cases, seems like the music’s purpose. Well it does however possess ‘certain formal characteristics that are reminiscent of the structures to be found in narrative texts” (Larsen, 2007, Page 206) Which is arguably how we get the illusion of narrative from music. Music can definitely add to the narrative and help explain things but also from a director/creators point of view, they have made this film and they want you to interpret it in a certain way. To do this they work with composers who will compose a score to create this mood “in certain situations, however, the music can actively shape the mood of the narrative or, more precisely, indicate to the spectator how a particular scene is to be understood and experienced”. (Larsen, 2007, Page 206) This helps the viewer know what is going on in the story and understand it the way it was written.
However, music’s function in a film is not just to contribute to the narrative. It can also function as an ‘additive’. In this case, the music is helping the construction of the film rather than adding to the narrative. Examples of this are when a piece of music is played as the main sound as we see multiple different shots played, which helps show the passing of time. This is therefore reinforcing the structure of the film.
‘the animation film-more than any other type of movie- is characterized by its construction of worlds in which the audience routinely encounters the unpredictable, the surreal, the illogical, the impossible, and around which the opportunities for imagination and invention are infinite. In such circumstance’s, a reliance on existing tracks seems undesirable since as wright has commented ‘pre recorded music is, in essence, a ‘prefabricated’ element…It enters the process already formed and the options for manipulating it are limited’ (2003:9) And yet as was demonstrated in Walt Disney’s Fantasia) (James Algar et al. 1940) the crafting of images to music, rather than music to images, can be successful and memorable. (Ian Inglis cited in Coyle 2010,Page 80)
There are many more examples of crafting images to music for example, Silly Symphonies. There are many versions of these. They allowed the animators to have fun with their animations, as there were no strict guidelines. The prefabrication of music here just gives the animators something to work with. As we have seen, these were very popular and they created more and more, using these shorts to test out new animation styles such as creating colour animations and the multiplane camera.
In conclusion, Film music and sound effects are both very useful as they help describe what is going on, the emotional side and the practical side. Sound effects are a very important factor in animation as it is not real and to believe in the animation we need it to seem real. Although film music is very important in both film and animation, we have seen that silence can be just as effective in creating different emotions and conveying feelings of emptiness and loneliness. Sound design actually has a lot more theory and process in it than at first glance.
Bibliography
Kalinak, K, (2010) Film music- A very short introduction, Oxford University press
Coyle, R, (2010) Drawn to sound: animation film music and sonicity, Equinox Publishing
Beauchamp, R, (2005) Designing sound for animation, Focal Press
Sonnenschein, D, (2001) Sound design- the expressive power of music, voice, ands sound effects in cinema, Michael Wiese Productions
Donnelly, K.J, (2005) The spectre of sound: music in film and television, British Film Institute
Levitin, D, (2006) This is your brain on music: Understanding a himan obsession, Atlantic Books
Larsen, P, (2010) Film music, Reaktion Books
Viers, R, (2008) The sound effects bible: How to create and record Hollywood style sound effects, Mivhael Wiese Productions
Sound in animation, Morgan Ames (2004) http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs294-7/sp04/sp_04_presentations/Sound_In_Animation.pdf
[Accessed]: 8/02/15
Open research online (2015) The non-diegetic fallacy: film, music, and narrative space
http://oro.open.ac.uk/29647/2/15A73DFF.pdf
[Accessed]: 16/02/2015
The encyclopaedia of Disney Animated shorts, (2015) Silly symphonies
http://www.disneyshorts.org/miscellaneous/silly.aspx
[Accessed]: 24/02/2015
Mind bites, Brittanie (2008) Importance of sound effects
http://blog.mindbites.com/importance-of-sound-effects/
[Accessed]: 24/02/2015
Kees van den Doel, Paul G. Kry, and Dinesh K. Pai (2015)
FOLEYAUTOMATIC: Physically-based Sound Effects for Interactive Simulation and Animation
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~pai/papers/foleyautomatic.pdf
[Accessed]: 24/02/2015
Tom Troscianko, (2015) The influence of sound effects on the perceived smoothness of rendered animation
http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Publications/Papers/2000391.pdf
[Accessed]: 24/02/2015
Roles, Significance, importance of sound/audio in animation,Meryll, (2012) Sounds/Audion: An important tool in animation
http://soundsupervision1.blogspot.co.uk
[Accessed]: 24/02/2015
IMDB (2015) Un chein andalou plot summary, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020530/plotsummary
[Accessed]: 17/03/2015
The Disney Wiki (2014) History: Steamboat Willie, http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Steamboat_Willie
[Accessed:17/03/2015]
Links
Link 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79i84xYelZI
Link 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIKYF07Y4kA
Link 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piH5_aP0fY8
Link 4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy7ztJ3NUMI
Link 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8ROhH3_vs
