Animated Narratives - week 7

by Xile Qiu (Celine)

Class summary

In this lesson we discussed diegetic and non-diegetic.

Diegetic refers to the objective and true voice. For example: conversation, water flow, character movement...Non-diegetic refers to the sound of something outside the story.In a game, for example, the player can hear sounds that the characters in the game can't hear. Like the BGM of the game, the UI sound.

The importance of sound is undeniable. The sound can let the audience get a lot of information.The video watched in class: Arak Football. (Dir Grant Orchard. OneDotZero,2005.) well illustrates this point. The sound lets the viewer know that the black spots in the original picture are crows. Red rectangles and white spheres represent someone kicking a ball. I can't even guess what the black blobs represent without the sound.

Sound can also add to the mood. Horror films become less scary when they are watched with their ears covered. The addition of scary music to less scary videos can also upset viewers.

Sound can be subjective or objective. It means we can enter the character's world.

The sound effects are also very interesting.  In the world of animation can put all animals even things can be personified in the world of animation. Humans have human language, and animals have animal language. For example, Pixar's 2016 short, Sandpiper, was directed by Alan Ballilaro. The only dialogue in this animation is in “bird language.” 

Director Alan Barilaro talks about the sound effects:

"Most of it is real birdsong, a little bit of it is Adrian Belew making with guitars, and some of it is foam. I learned a lot from Andrew Stanton on Wall-E, and he worked so hard to get the robot language right that I felt I had to get the bird language on the same level as him. "At the beginning there was a lot of noise and a lot of noise, and it was a challenge to get it right, especially with the mother-daughter focus."

However, animation has such magic power to turn the "bird language" that we can't understand into a language that everyone can understand, and even resonate with the characters inside. This is what makes animation fascinating.

Story beats

In response to this week's theme. In class, our group created a story. 

According to the teacher's feedback in class, I made my own adaptation.

1. A house in poor care，paints on the walls are patchy with mold on some spots, rotten wooden front fence. In the room upstairs, there is a young man, he focused on his computer.
2. He is addicted to playing games.（Keyboard sound. The closer the picture is to the keyboard, the louder the sound/ Game music/Hot summer ambient sounds）
3. Ten hours passed. The man finally got tired. He turned off the computer.(Objective voice)
4. The computer screamed. (Computer screams)
5. He turned on the computer. The computer chuckled. (Objective voice/ Computer laughter/Suspense background music)
6. The man freaked out and unplugged the computer. (Objective voice/The man sounds frightened and / Suspense music)
7. After a few minutes it was quiet. He thought he was hearing voices.
8. The man was lying on the bed playing with his Ipad. Then he heard the computer telling him to turn it on. (Funny video voice of iPad, ethereal voice of computer)
9. The Ipad also made a sound. "You've been playing games for 10 hours, and I'm your best bet before bed." At this time, the phone also made a voice and said, "I am the best choice, you should see me!" (Dialogue,The conversation is repeated in the man's ear/ Suspense background music)
10. The man jumped out of bed and rubbed his eyes and ears. (Silence)
11. The man finally left the room.
12. Outside is the sound of leaves blowing in the wind, birds singing....

After the adaptation of the story I want to express is that a person addicted to the network, His life revolves around electronics. The voice of the electronic speaker is used as a metaphor for his need to relax his spirit. The sounds of nature outside contrast with the sounds of terror inside.