Research Papers Quotes:
- Playing in ‘Toon:Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940) and imagineering of Classical Music by Mark Clague. (2004)
p91 – “music is a spontaneous impulsive expression – that its range is without limit” Leopard Stokowski, Music for All of US, 318
Check out Walt Disny quotedin Culhane
p92- That is why great music associated with motion pictures is so important, because motion pictures reach millions all over our country and all over the world.
(fantasia critics) … audiovisual alignment can articulate form, how gestures of melody and motion reinforce one another, and how musical rhetoric and image fuse to create meaning.
p96 … the combination of science and creativity, engineering and imagination.
p97 – … image does not simply explicate sound, it introduces a host of associations, ideas, and references to music that brings new meanings …
… audio-visual synthesis that transformed both sounds and image into a “new form of entertainment.” (Roadshow program, (18). The Term “audio-visual” is borrowed from Michel Chion.
It appealed to middlebrow culture, puncturing social barriers between high and low, education and entertainment, to nurture a middle-class America culture by making classical music accessible.
p98 – The movie this connects music to life through image … new vision … ideological imagineering…
The host of expressions had to be organized and expressed in harmony with the rhythm and structure of the music itself.
… artists have not only remain faithful to the spirit of the various compositions, but they have also… translated the very phrases and measures and even individual notes into just the right colours and actions.
p99 – It pairs music with “just the right” imagery, giving the whole ideological construction the imprimaturs of Art.
2. Animation and Music: Principles for Effective Combination
p1 Music and film both emotionally rich mediums.
… limitless range of human emotion.
… create a deeper, more emotionally rich experience.
… animators using music as both the driving force for an animated film as well as
a means of aiding in the understanding of the action.
… Norman McLean, Oskar Fischinger, Jaques Drowin and John and Faith Hubley who were also experiencing with the connections between musicians animation.
Disney’s technique of synchronising every single animated movement to the beat or pulse of music become so popular and recognisable that it was known in the industry as “Mickey Mousing”
P. 2 Animation sequences were planned out in strict adherence to the number of beats in the music.
Fig. 1. From the Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
Out of thisProcess came a new form of music and animation notation called a bar sheet, also referred to as a dope sheet (fig. 1)
… animation were forced tofu their movements and storytelling techniques to the confines of music.
“There is a special feeling in work that is done this way that is not found in other methods, but it is more expensive because it demands it makes in all the creative department” Disney animator Frank Thomas
… animator were challenged to limit their expressions of motion the absolute minimum.
Side thought – emotion has motion within the word, is there a link in meaning?
p. 3 Arguably, animation that is built around music soundtrack creates the strongest from of audio/visual combination.
My thoughts – is animation better when made to fit music?
The process of animating to music is extremely laborious and involves highly details analysis of music before creating a single animation drawing.
My thoughts – How does it differ in production then and now? Less difficult?
… studies of a more scientific nature have been conducted George Washington University in which computer animated objects are used to drive synthesised sound production.
Researchers are, in a sense, creating virtual objects that can programmatically generate their own sounds when they collide with other objects.
…shows a physics based approach to sound generation. It attempts to create a sense of realism virtual environment by having objects appear to create realistic and believable sounds. Emotional considerations do not seem to be considered.
My thoughts – emotional vs physics
There have been several computer programs written that create visualization of music such as Microsoft’s Media Player, Nullsoft’s Winamp and RealNetwork’s RealOnePlayer.
The colors and shapes can change with changesinthe intensity and frequency (low sounds verses high sounds) of music.
My thoughts – frequency driven
P. 4 … direct relationship between two elements of music, pitch and loudness, which are integral factors in music’s ability to express emotion.
… visualization hanse way of really differentiating between these two emotions.
… hypnotic effect for the viewer.
What these visualizations lack, however any deeper meaning or connotations implications that are derived from emotional elements.
… this emotional connection between visual and audio would be purely coincidental.
P. 5 In the early 1980s, a new electronic protocol was developed for communicating between music synthesizer … MIDI (Musical InstrumenT Digital Interface)
My thoughts – Coyote Ugly and incredibox
… “Butterflies in the Rain”, was developed at Ohio State University as part of a graduate thesis… mapped that data to the animation of a 3d animated piano,
Animusic that produces little mini “music-videos” based on pre-compsed MIDI music.
… animation appears to be “playing” the music.
My thoughts – illusion of reality and interactive. – touch / tactical animation.
P. 6 … the musical mood and the visual mood are not what is being driven automatically. The animated motion is complex and synchronized very closely with the music, but the qualities of music that help to enhance the level of emotion expressed in the films appear to be created manually by the animator.
Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson wrote, “Music is undoubtably themes important addition that will be made the picture. It can do morello bring a production to life, to give it integrity, style, emphasis, meaning, and unity than any other single ingredient.
Music in combination with film can take two forms, diagetic or nondiagetic.
P. 7 Nondiagetic music refers to music that does not emanate from within the environment of the film.
… Herbert Zettle calls “visual vectors.” In his book Sight Sound Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics he defines these as forces that are leading the viewer’s eye from one point to another.
My thoughts – all animation is audio driven?
The most basic elements of music are pitch, timber (pronounced “timber”), duration, loudness and attack/decay.
p. 8 Structure of music…melody, rhythm, harmony, homophony, polyphony.
Melody – series musical tones grouped in succession
Rhythm – formed by varying the duration of notes based on a “felt” pulse or beat
Harmony – Major, minor
Combination Principles
Herbert Zettle