I got to the wharves, strolled around for a while, then stood on the corner, smoking. From out of the shadows she reached out and took my hand.Woman: "You look like you could use some... company."
Uncle Eddie: "You look like trouble, sister, and I don't want any trouble!"
Woman: "Listen to me. I have things to say. You're the blog guy, aren't you? I saw your picture on the internet."
Uncle Eddie: "Maybe. What's it to you?"
Woman: "Plenty! Follow me!"
Woman: "Go ahead, drink up. It's a clean glass! Look, I gotta talk about this pre-recorded/post-recorded thing. You draw the film first then put the music on at the animatic stage, right?"Uncle Eddie: "Maybe."
Woman: "Well, that sucks! No wonder modern cartoons have no rhythm! You gotta start with a sound track that works, that's beautiful and dynamic and inspiring in its own right. "
Uncle Eddie: "Well, ya wanna see what the film's gonna look like before you put music on it."
Woman: "Stupido! Put music on it!? A funny cartoon should be PRE-RECORDED!!!! You don't draw a film first, with whatever random timing you feel like, then hand it over to the music guy to save it. The music, voices and major effects come FIRST! Do that and you won't have to worry so much about the timing! "
She slipped off her shoes and unfastened two buttons. She was open to her bra. Her dress slipped up, above her knees. I tried not to look. But I didn't succeed.
Good old Blogger! I type the article with the paragraphs close to each other and they come out with miles of white space between them! Grrrr!
ReplyDelete"Go ahead, drink up. It's a clean glass!"
ReplyDeleteThat was a really well written post! Your talking pictures are a lot of fun.
Do you scan these pictures in from stuff you have?
The way i see it:
ReplyDeletePre record, but not final. Have either the guy doing the animatic or the speakers do some recordings himself or give him dirty tracks nailing the timing, have the people concerned with animatics or animating be flexible enough to use it as a guideline but in just case be able to edit and alter the takes and then, with final animation record the voices final.
Sheesh, i just came home from the bar.. shoudn't post after comming home from the bar. Blogger has no 'edit post' feature!!
ReplyDeleteAnd i forgot: even when doing tests, don't forget to add "atmospherics" to your sound - regular sounds fitting the location of the scene (generic noise, wind etc..). A Soundtrack with simply dialogue and deadly silence in between usually carries an tense and unenthusiastic mood.
ReplyDeletehi eddie
ReplyDeleteever think to do another poetry corner? this post kinda reminds me of it!
I think that dock-lurking hussy is right. That's whay I prefer, anyway. That's also because I kind of hate doing all the parts of animation that are not animation. I want to draw, and maybe come up with some jokes, but that's pretty much it, so if some one else can hand me the music beforehand, I'm all for it (unless the music really sucks)
ReplyDeleteAnother great &well thought out post. Uncle Eddie meets the most interesting folks.
ReplyDeleteYes, the picture I sent was only because it had a bear in the corner.
Pre-record! Which reminds me...I need to get back to my animating!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the cute post Eddie!!!!
Uncle Eddie,
ReplyDeleteI think you should start bloggingmentor.com . i miss seeing your quick doodles. none of the recent posts have them! Draw uncle Draw! With great power comes great responsiblity! or what ever.
meh.
DJ
Drunk Danny says: "Blogger has no 'edit post' feature!!"
ReplyDeleteOf course it does. You preview comment first then hit EDIT or just scroll up if you don't like what you wrote.
The problem is that they (those that create the blogs) assume a competent person or at least one with half a brain is going to comment. I guess the moral is to never assume.
Good luck, Danny, on your next venture... figuring out how to partake in daily activities such as dressing yourself or eating without an instructor.
Geez, another prime example of the intelligence level of the commenter s going down on Eddies great posts. First the Kliban fanatic and now this rocket scientist who cant figure out how to edit comments. Brilliant!!
I can't wait till you explain to her how you're gonna fix it in post.
ReplyDeleteYou played that just right, Eddie.
ReplyDeleteIt was a pointless question. The message was all in the subtext.
Keep your pimp hand strong.
I thought those long pauses between paragraphs was for dramatic effect.
ReplyDeleteReally great post. I never thought about pre/post recording, but now you've brought it to my mind I can see why pre-recording would be so much better.
ReplyDeleteI was of the opinion it worked out like this. You write the story and work out your gags in storyboard, with or without a scratch track. Then you record the vocal track, animate to the vocal track, then score the music/SFX to the animation. So pre-record or post-record? My answer is yes.
ReplyDeleteO, I thought the way it was done was to pick some music with a beat, animate everything that can possibly move in time to that, skip animatics and pencil tests, shoot final animation and then record some mumbled dialogue without worrying too much about whether the characters happen to be moving their lips or not.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I think it's much funnier that way.
Some live action directors have yearned for the synthesis of sound and image made possible by pre-recording . . . from this page:
ReplyDelete"The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) is now recognised as one of Powell and Pressburger's finest achievements, an extraordinarily imaginative interpretation of Offenbach's unfinished opera which, shot to a completely pre-recorded soundtrack , is probably the closest Powell ever came to realising his dream of making an entirely 'composed film'."
Powell and Pressburger's earlier moves in this direction were the ballet sequence in The Red Shoes, and the climax of Black Narcissus:
"This sequence was an early experiment by Powell in what he termed "composed film," scored first by Brian Easdale then shot according to the rhythms of the soundtrack."
That lady sure knows what she's talking about..! :D
ReplyDeleteWow, anonymous - speaking of intelligence..
ReplyDeleteA valid argument you have there, pointing out the big difference between rereading what i write as i write and rereading it again in a preview format. You call that an edit function? And talk about intelligence in the same line? While arguing with a drunk? Anonymously?! One happy man you are! But at least you learned how to rant, listening will be step nr. 2 one day..
"Black Narcissus" rules as some fine visual storytelling but if you watch a faded print, it won't work.
ReplyDeleteFleischer cartoons had the best of both worlds. Popeye cartoons had the songs and some dialog pre-recorded (you can tell by the way the mouths move in sync) and then Jack Mercer & others would record the great ad-libs after animation was done.
ReplyDeleteHey Danny. Anon does have a point. There is a "preview" button (thats what the button is actually called) before you publish comment that works quite well. I use it frequently. Thats how you edit. You are suppose to use it FIRST to make sure what you wrote is what you really want to say ... well, it's really self explanatory and works perfectly fine for most.
ReplyDeleteAnd correcting typos or spelling really isn't a very valid or smart defense. It's more of a last desperate act used by most all other simpleton type internet chatters that can't find any other way to make a point, so they attack typos. It's very predictable among the feeble minded. Oh well. Carry on.
Eddie, your blog rocks! And reading the comments make me feel like a rocket scientist sometimes. Gotta love it! Thanks! :-)
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ReplyDeleteHey, I have a question. Setting a film to a beat is certainly important, and animation looks fantastic when it's perfectly synced with music. But doesn't that conflict with the anarchic structure of comedy? The greatest Ren and Stimpy episodes - Sven Hoek, Man's Best Friend, and others - you can feel a rhythm, but the music seems irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that musical cartoons aren't fun to watch, or that humor doesn't benefit from spontaneity - both have been proven! But isn't it impossible to do both at the same time?
(edit, whoops, got confused by a double-negative!)
Soos: Wow! Good question! I don't think I could make an adequate answer in a few words. Maybe I could try to answer in another blog post.
ReplyDeleteDanny: Holy Cow! I can't imagine doing the film without voices to work from. Interesting point about atmosherics.
Marlo: Ah, a culture lover! Yes, we need more poetry here!
Man, I love it when you do this kind of post. I tried to convince my brother that the sound effects and voices are done first, but I was unsuccessful. I wish I had something more important to say about this.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping you might, actually.
ReplyDeleteI tried doing a certain amount of both for my final project last year - maybe it's doable by a better animator, but it felt like the spontaneous parts killed the overall rhythm, and the rhythmic parts got in the way of the acting. Augh!
There was a lot of funny coming out of Fleischer Post animation recording via adlib. And just to invent a reason why it might not be best to have a nice musical soundtrack to animate to, is these days, there would be a musical soundtrack, but it would be some sort of Lion King treacle some suit said should be used.
ReplyDeleteBut I think it is a no brainer, to choose to animate to a lively soundtrack, music and voice.
The problem seems to be that, these days, it is not done as artfully, either because of bad timing sheets or overreliance on tweening in flash, or simply no attention being paid to the tone of the soundtrack. Inappropriate acting to the voice track.