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Sound, Foley, Special Effects, etc...

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Sound, Foley, Special Effects, etc...

Alert...Read my last post of this thread

Hi,
I am starting this thread in the hope that people who have the know-how will put tips on adding sound to animation. I have no idea where this subject should start, but purhaps dialog?
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This thread is not getting the responces I was hopping for. I think I will give it a week or two before asking for it to be deleted.
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Just kidding, I think. I have found a web site that is devoted to sound in film so here is the link.

http://www.filmsound.org/

Sound design and foley is a whole new bag of tricks. I'd suggest getting a professional or someone who has had experience with it...

So if I were to go to someone, what do I ask for? Do I just give them a script and story board, then wait for a call back?

That's a good place to start.

Some people like an Non Disclosure Agreement first... But it's not always neccessary.

Geoff
www.geoffedwards.ca
"The dog is Cerberus, the girl Zoe, I'm Dirge"

"Actually, it's because the mouth has to have completed the shape before we can hear the sound"

---like the guitar string only vibrates (and sounds) oncew your finger leaves the string-------

Mike Futcher - www.yogyog.org

Off a Different Forum

While I was looking around for more animation web sites, I came across a forum and this was posted.
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Tip, put the actual sound the mouth is making (drawing) one frame ahead of the actual voice you are hearing. I think I heard that tip on this forum actually... but it works

I had the opportunity in the early 80s to work with Warner Leighton who created many of the effects in the HB sound effects library.
The methods he used to create the effects were both inventive and hilarious.

The Jetsons' car flyby effect was created by putting the muzzle of a pop gun into a cider jug and pulling the trigger. Then he did it again and again, with the muzzle pulled a little further out each time to vary the pitch of each pop. He then isolated the "pops" on the 35mm mag stock and spliced them together at even intervals to create the doppler effect.

The uneven 'broken' screech you'd hear when Fred Flintstone would skid to a stop was created by scraping the magnetic emulsion from a squeal effect on the mag stock with a razor blade. He often faded in and out of sound effects by literally scratching fades onto the mag stock with razor blades.

Cool guy. I haven't seen Warner in many many years, but if he's still around, he'd certainly be worth a visit.
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I really like this kind of information, but I do see that the whole process for adding sound is an intuitive process.

Thanks for that. I too really like to hear about inventive ways of making sounds. I had this hollow concreate slab outside my studio door a few years ago. I close miked it once as a large boulder was slid across it. I sounded like huge gothic vault door being opened. I used it on a radio station ident I was working on so it became their weekend music vault sound.

Geoff
www.geoffedwards.ca
"The dog is Cerberus, the girl Zoe, I'm Dirge"

Sound design and foley is a whole new bag of tricks. I'd suggest getting a professional or someone who has had experience with it to do the effects for your animation, but I know that's not often possible.

For effects, you could download a bunch off of sites such as flashkit.com. For dialogue recording, I definitely wouldn't suggest doing it yourself as bad sound recording can pretty much ruin an animation, but if you must, pick up a mic from BestBuy or something and plug it up to your sound card. Most sound cards have a microphone jack, and record it. I believe the built-in sound player in windows has the capability to record, but I haven't looked around for stuff like that in ages, since as I said, you should get someone who has experience :)

it is good advice to have someone else record your sound, but I think the question was refering to how to animate once you have the sound in reference to dialog...

Tip, put the actual sound the mouth is making (drawing) one frame ahead of the actual noice you are hearing. I think I heard that tip on this forum actually... but it works.

Don't do nothing because you can't do everything.

[QUOTE=Tip, put the actual sound the mouth is making (drawing) one frame ahead of the actual noice you are hearing. I think I heard that tip on this forum actually... but it works.[/QUOTE]

Great tip, I had never thought about the sound sink problem. Using dialog as my jumping off point was a random thought. Once the actors have been recorded, as side from sinking up their vioce to the animation, is the treatment of the sound it self. For instance, if a character is in another room yell, how would I get that effect.

Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) is free, runs very well, and comes with echo/delay/reverb effects, and even compression, all of which would work well for environmental/other room FX.

[QUOTE=Tip, put the actual sound the mouth is making (drawing) one frame ahead of the actual noice you are hearing. I think I heard that tip on this forum actually... but it works.[/QUOTE]
I recon that's because light moves faster than sound so we're used to hearing thinks slightly late.

Mike Futcher - www.yogyog.org

Oh, goody I thought as I opened this thread all ready to throw my two bits in about creating sound for animation...

Oh well, back to lurking in the background...

Geoff
www.geoffedwards.ca
"The dog is Cerberus, the girl Zoe, I'm Dirge"

I recon that's because light moves faster than sound so we're used to hearing thinks slightly late.

Actually, it's because the mouth has to have completed the shape before we can hear the sound - the mouth has to be shaped correctly for the sound to sound right, in other words. The difference in speed between light and sound is negligible at close (dialog) ranges.

If you want to get really fancy, put the vowel sounds on the synch frame and lead slightly with the consonants. I don't remember where I first read that, but it works great.

If you want to get really fancy, put the vowel sounds on the synch frame and lead slightly with the consonants.

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I can effortlessly produce vowels with my mouth open, but I'd "take a few frames" to form a consonant. In theory, at least, it's a realistic straightforward solution.

Breaking News

I just found a book on sound. The tite is "Designing Sound For Animation" by Robin Beauchamp, published by Focal Press. This books comes with a DVD which has four example of animation and each animation offers different features. You can hear the sound in 5.1 mix, stereo mix, dilby 5.1 mix, dts 5.1 mix, and animatics. There are two commentary on this disk which for me is alway a big help.

This book is pricy so go rob your piggy banks.