Hello markyboy,
Thank you for this most interesting question.
Animationartist.com has an article that notes soundtrack scoring for
animation might even be a more difficult task:
http://www.animationartist.com/features/music/music.html
The Music of Animation
by Nathaniel Thompson of ScoreLogue
"Even more than most live action movies, successful animation depends
as much on music and sound effects as the visuals on the screen. Where
would Pepe LePew be without quasi-French accordian music in the
background? Would the seven dwarfs be half as charming if they
couldn't sing? From the most basic Saturday morning cartoon to big
budget studio epics, music brings drawn images to life a way unlike
any other form of film scoring..."
They continue with a brief, but fascinating history of scoring for
animation.
The site mentions that this article originated at ScoreLogue and
visiting their site I found an impressive collection of links:
http://www.scorelogue.com/links/
Although a perusal of these links did not uncover anything that
particularly spoke to the comparison of animation vs action scoring,
they are a most useful collection and I'm sure will help with your
research. Do look through the section for Film Music sites.
At Sound on Sound publications site you will find an interesting
article that details the process and difficulties of creating music
for animations:
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1997_articles/aug97/animationmusic.html
Tunes for Toons
WRITING MUSIC FOR ANIMATION
Cartoons -- they're brilliant! And wouldn't you just love to write the
music? BIG GEORGE WEBLEY puts you in the picture...
"...Animation music may seem like an extremely dangerous avenue to go
down, but if you can cope with it there's no other medium which will
ever cause you fear afterwards. Scoring a big-budget Hollywood
blockbusting movie is a trivial task in comparison to writing
soundtracks for animation. And there's plenty of animation work around
these days: TV signature tunes, commercials, government training
videos, film school graduate shorts, art films, TV, satellite and
cable station logos: the list is virtually endless. There really is
every chance of you becoming one of the new breed of young, happening,
serious composers..."
This is an excellent and thorough article with quite a bit of
information you may wish to quote in your project. The author also
recommends and notes:
"...FURTHER READING
For a complete guide to understanding the technicalities of composing
for animation (and all film scoring), there is really only one book
you need: On The Track -- A Guide To Contemporary Film Scoring, by
Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright. It is only available as an import and
will set you back the best part of £50. From the foreword by John
Williams (Star Wars trilogy, Indiana Jones trilogy, Jaws, Schindlers
List, ET, Jurassic Park, and so on, and so on), to the comprehensive
and complete Click Book at the back (see 'In the Frame' box), it
covers everything you'll ever need to know about making music for
film. All the current top Hollywood composers give anecdotal advice
and helpful tips alongside examples of their actual film scores.
There's simply no other book on the market that comes anywhere close,
but on enquiring with the wholesaler, I found that there seem to be
only three copies in the country at present, so get down to your local
bookshop and place an order now!..."
Film Music magazine interviews John Debney at this page, and he talks
a bit about scoring specific to animations:
http://www.johndebney.com/fmm_int.html
John Debney
Bringing The Music To Life
by Rudy Koppl
"...FMM: How does your approach change with animated films?
John Debney: Animation is its own art form. In the old school Mickey
Mouse/Carl Stalling type of animation you hit everything. There was
not a look or little action that you didn't hit. If a character's
walking in a certain tempo, you match that tempo. Now a lot of
animation writing is less cued and written more like a regular live
action film. You're constantly using different tempos and there's a
certain basic harmonic vocabulary. A lot of diminished chords, a lot
of odd augmented chords, it's a convention that you follow. When I was
on the ground floor doing Tiny Toons with Bruce Broughton and the crew
it was the hardest. It's a half hour of complete mayhem and madness.
It literally became a running joke that you do one score, get your
feet wet, if you survived it you'd get to do another one. The next
scores would always have more notes and the goal was to always see who
had the blackest page with the most notes. You don't take a novice and
throw them in and say "give me Carl Stalling," it's hard. Jonny Quest
was really a fun little two-hour TV movie because we just got to blow
the roof off. The locales were all varied from Japan to South America,
so we got to have a lot of cool percussion. Then I just brought in the
old Hanna-Barbera brass section. These trumpet players can blow the
highest loudest notes that you've ever heard..."
So, we are finding that rather than "Is writing music for animation a
lesser art than scoring live action films?", this appears to be a more
difficult and exacting art form that tests even the best of action
composers.
Animation World Magazine notes in one of their reviews on music from
the Simpsons:
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.1/articles/reviews2.1.html
Reviews in Brief
by Wendy Jackson
"The Simpsons: Songs in the Key of Springfield.
Fans of The Simpsons will be pleased to learn of the release of a
compilation of original songs, scores, background music and themes
from the TV series. "Songs in the Key of Springfield: Original Music
From the Television Series" is a 51-track album released by Rhino
Records...
..Most of the music from The Simpsons is composed and arranged by Alf
Clausen, who has been nominated for an Emmy 14 times. I asked Alf what
the most striking difference between scoring music for animation
versus live-action. He said, "We approach The Simpsons not as a
cartoon, but as a drama where the characters are drawn. As such, the
emotional content of the music is more closely tailored to a live
action focus, rather than that of a typical cartoon style. The most
striking difference between scoring this animated series and scoring
live action is that, with the episodes edited so tightly because of
the dialogue intensity, I as the composer don't have much time to set
up and make a musical statement of any substantial length before
having to move on to the next scene." He adds a comment about the
pacing of animation music, "I joke with my orchestra that I can make
you feel 5 different ways in 13 seconds. As funny as that statement
is, the requirements of scoring this series make that situation very
close to the truth." He adds, "Another interesting thing about
animation is that the sky is the limit on story ideas, so that if the
writers decide that Homer has a desire to be an astronaut, there are
no budget problems with sets, wardrobe, etc. to stand in the way of it
happening. Therefore, the music requirements can change radically from
week to week, because of the great variety of stories generated by the
writing staff. It's great fun!"
And another article by Wendy Jackson interviews composers on animation
soundtracks:
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.1/articles/jacksondi2.1.html
Desert Island Series . . . If a Tree Falls on a Desert Island, Does
Anyone Hear It?
Compiled by Wendy Jackson
"Danny Elfman
"In scoring animation, one tends to hit actions a little more tightly,
although that's not necessarily true; I don't think I scored Batman
any different as a live action film than if it were an animated film."
He does seem to be the exception in qualifying the differences between
animation and action scoring.
An interview at ASCAP with John Debney also talks to the differences
in scoring techniques:
http://ascap.org/playback/2003/march/debney.html
John Debney -- and the Art of the Film Score
- By Jim Steinblatt
"...How does composing for animation differ from live-action film
scoring?
I always describe animation as being a two-dimensional situation,
i.e., you don't have living, breathing human beings that make noise.
You have the screen and the actors voicing the animated characters,
along with the sound effects and the music. The music and sound
effects in animated movies have to create a lot more of the
environment and, many times, the emotions of the film. Animated, 2-D
figures can't emote in the way a human actor can. The music in
animated features often has to convey a lot more..."
And another ScoreLogue interview, this time with David Newman notes:
http://www.scorelogue.com/newman_2.html
David Newman - Heart and Laughter
By Vance Brawley
"...In regards to Anastasia, how was scoring animation different from
scoring live action?
It wasn't much different. I loved working with Don (Bluth) and Gary
(Goldman). Fox was also very much behind it. I've never seen a studio
so supportive of any movie! Anything we wanted to do, we could do; I
was on that movie for almost four months. They wanted somebody on for
a long time so they could slowly work through the issues involved in
scoring. We did some scoring way early on, to "test the waters". It
was great. We all, very quickly, ended up in sync, and it was then a
matter of just little by little going through the movie. There's quite
a bit of music in that movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a
chorus through most of the movie, which I loved working with. It was
truly a beautiful film..."
So, as you can see, the consensus is that animation scoring is no
lesser and art form, but can even be more demanding and more complex.
Another Vance Brawley interview, this time with James Newton Howard,
also speaks about animation scoring:
http://www.scorelogue.com/interviews/james_newton_howard.html
"...What is your scoring process, particularly with an animated
project where you don't see a script beforehand?
Normally what happens is I read the script and meet the director. This
is usually even before the shooting happens. I'll get a rough cut of
the film three or four months later, and we get together to decide
where the music's going to go. Usually I have anywhere from eight to
twelve weeks to complete a score. With this film and many of the
Disney animated pictures, what is required is to go in and compose and
record the primary thematic material first because everyone is sort of
interested to see how the music will impact the movie, and how all the
themes and the sound of the movie are on the same page. That's kind of
daunting for me as a composer because thematic stuff comes as a result
of immersion in a score over a long period of time. This one required
that I develop all the themes early. They showed me the opening ten
minutes of the movie, which is that fabulous shot of the bird flying
across and the egg traveling through the prehistoric world. Without
music it was fairly intimidating because it was so monumentally
inspiring, visually. I'd never seen anything like it. I took that ten
minutes and worked for about six weeks and made a very elaborate demo
of it. I presented the demo to the directors and producers, then
recorded it with live orchestra and choir. Then I went off and did
three or four other movies, like The Sixth Sense and Snow Falling on
Cedars. Then I went back in the late fall and finished Dinosaur, which
came out the next summer..."
You might also wish to look through this course description on Music
for Cartoons:
http://www.squirrelworks.com/squirrelworkslabs/courses/live/courses-live-mc101.html
"What would cartoons be without music? Many are familiar with the
visual magic of animation but few regard the significance of its aural
counterpart. This unique course will provide a rare opportunity for
the student to take a historical and aesthetic journey into the music
behind cartoons and animated films. Only through its music can the
true heart of animation be conveyed to the audience.
Throughout the two day course the student will be exposed to a wide
variety of music scores from cartoons and films ranging from the
"Looney Tunes" of the early 20th Century to the modern day musings of
"The Simpsons". Plenty of audio and video examples will be on hand to
help convey the ideas and functions behind the music. So come join
instructor, Brian Satterwhite, as he leads this incredibly interesting
and fun examination of music for cartoons!..."
And this interview with Alan Silvestri:
http://www.johnbraheny.com/filmtv/silvest.html
"I interviewed film composer Alan Silvestri for the LASS Musepaper in
March 1991. It turned out to be one of the best for Alan's wonderful
ability to articulate his process in scoring films. Though it's not a
current interview, this information is timeless. If you'd like to see
a current bio and filmography, please go to
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/misc/personal/cm1jwb/silvestr.htm
JB: Let's talk about the physical process of scoring a film.
AS: This is an animation film and they very often have peculiar
problems because of their very nature. They're kind of like a Polaroid
picture. The process starts and the image of the film slowly starts to
appear over time. It takes a long time to start to see what that is.
When I did Roger Rabbit, I think they were getting 12 feet of film a
week. Unlike shooting a day of film and then watching dailies the next
day. The animation is ever so slightly different because of its
nature..."
And at Digital Media FX:
http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/animationcomposer.html
"Bum Da Daaa, DaDa Da Dun Daaaa: The Early Animation Composer
by Noell Wolfgram Evans
When Jerry hits Tom over the head with a shovel, the language of the
action is understood across the globe. This is one of the beauties of
animation; it's a translatable art form. When done properly, a
finished animated film can be viewed and enjoyed (in much the same
manner) in countries around the world. There's only one other medium
with such a universal acceptance rate: music.
Music is an incredibly expressive medium. In a single note more can be
expressed than what most people express through words in a single day.
That music and animation would join together is a celebration of
common sense. When married properly the two are a perfect fit,
complimenting, driving and inspiring each other and the audience..."
The article continues with a history of the notable personalities
involved with the evolution of scoring for animations.
Search Strategy:
animation +scoring OR score OR soundtrack
film scoring +animation
I trust my research has provide valuable and usable links and quotes
your are able to use in your project and answer the question of
comparing action to animation scoring. If a link above should fail to
work or anything require further explanation or research, please do
post a Request for Clarification prior to rating the answer and
closing the question and I will be pleased to assist further.
Regards,
-=clouseau=- |
,
0 Comments
)