How animated films are built
A while back, in the post ‘A Question for Tim,’ I wondered about a new (if it was new) form of film, one in which you build up a soundtrack like a radioplay, then add visuals to this – visuals like stills, or graphics, short animation, anything you can do cheaply and simply.
Tim answered my question by saying this is the way it is usually done in cartoons: the soundtrack is built up not in final form, but pretty close; then the animators match their cels to the soundtrack, adjusting the soundtrack as needed.
The term for this process, he says, is animatics.
He doesn’t know for sure of any live action films that use the technique, though one director (who used to be an animator) is said to use it, at least in part, in his live action films.
So there you have it.
This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, though.
And Tim didn’t like the notion that the soundtrack could be sufficient unto itself. Truly, this is frowned upon in film criticism: rightly so, no one element should be sufficient unto itself, and each should be necessary for the whole. My goal, though, is to have two tales: one the soundtrack, and the other the film with sound and picture, which would enhance and elaborate the soundtrack.
The only example I know about is one that was never intended to be: on the DVD to The Magnificent Ambersons there is a recreation of the ending, whose picture has been lost, but the soundtrack to which has survived. You can hear the dialogue with productions stills. It’s the best they could do, but it isn’t what anyone would do who had the method in mind during production.
(Composed on keyboard Sunday, September 14, 2008)
