CAS Quarterly

Fall 2021

Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1401154

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 19 of 51

Zenimation for the D23 event. We looked into locating and restoring all of the original elements from these Disney lms and thinking of ways to integrate them together so they sound like a "whole," while still respecting the individual pieces. David: Once it was greenlit, that's when they spoke to me so I knew it was on the horizon. I assume there's a lot of reconforming on your end? Shannon: There was a mix where David Bess would have some of the sources, and once the cut got to the place everyone was comfortable with, David Fluhr and I would dig to see if we could nd better versions or versions with more isolation to bring more exibility in the mix. I imagine that releases from the most recent decade or two would have solid stems available. Any issues with some of the older films? Shannon: Well, in the past, there may not have been a separate effects stem for some of these lms. The music and effects stem may have been the only version available. Being that it's an effects-based series and we couldn't separate the music, we would sometimes have to go back and recreate an effects stem. David: In animation, anything that moves generally gets a sound and it has to be created by someone—the men and women who are in the sound creation department. It's an amazing thing and it's a lot of work. With current lms, sound design is very sophisticated. Shannon and I can tell you lots of war stories about how we had to gure out what's going to be featured. But with the early lms, many were just at. If you look at them, music was the big driving force for a lot of the earlier lms. I mean, even Bambi has almost no sound effects except for a forest re and, you know, a gunshot. So those earlier lms sometimes needed some additional sounds. Also, a lot of the older soundtracks were on optical and we just didn't have clean versions, so the design was recreated in the style of the original while honoring the original sound designers. Shannon: For elements that I didn't have or that weren't isolated, David [Fluhr] and his team were able to get me the cleanest copies available. They were also able to provide me with a clean copy of the Jimmy MacDonald sound effects library. This allowed me to recreate from some of the original sounds. [Jimmy MacDonald is a legendary sound effects artist and was the rst head of the Disney sound effects department.] Some sound effects were also added because, in the original full mix, there may be a music cue covering some on-screen action. So, we had to make sure those actions had sounds since we weren't using music or dialogue. Anatomy of an Episode: An excerpt of the 22 transitions from "Transformation" MOANA (2016) ATLANTIS (2001) SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959) PINOCCHIO (1940) CINDERELLA (1950) FROZEN (2013)

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of CAS Quarterly - Fall 2021