Sound Effects in Animation

Its Finals week and all the animation students at Woodbury University are loading up on the caffeine to get their films done before the big deadline. And as I write this, I have my own deadline to finish animating Episode 2 before the Summer begins or is over.

I've been laying out the final scenes and cutting in sound effects to enhance the rough animation. I've noticed that many students are relying only on their music to tell their animated stories, but I find it always amazing to download or create a sound effect and sync it up to my silent animation. 

The first sync sound experience I had in animation was to animate a water splash. Back in the day, sound was on 1/4 tape and you had to record this master take unto a roll of perforated 16mm Magnetic film.Once the sound was on the 16mm mag stock, you had to add a head and tail leader. I shutter to remember those days myself, but I learned how to read the sound and figuring out when the splash occurred and when the second droplet of water fell.

No Animateducated website or Youtube references to learn from; my only source was the Disney " Illusion of Life" book and still photographs that I could find in books about science high speed photography. Once the splash was animated and pencil tested, I had to sync it up to the mag stock of the splash sound effect. I will spare you the gruesome details, but let's just say when that drawing of a ball hit the water and the sound of the splash happened at the same time as my animation, that was pure magic to me.

So, here's a sequence with sound effects added to my animation again, but using the tools of today. When it works, I am still amazed.

Sound for Action from Toondini on Vimeo.

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