Due to being informed by Brett, the animatior, I already knew the cartoon was going to be non dialogue, I figured this would be a good place to start my research. Looking in to how cartoons of this nature get their point across using only sounds and music with no dialogue.
When asking Brett what style of cartoon he was animating, he told us it was more of a Western style cartoon drawing, oposed to European style cartoons, giving reference to Dexter’s Laboratory, Fairly Odd Parents and Spongebob Squarepants, giving us an even bigger scope of research for cartoons to compare and draw up ideas for our own sounds and music.
‘An effective soundtrack helps us identify with the characters and their story. Animators create characters, not actors. Much of the acting occurs in the dialogue while SFX reinforce the characters physical traits and movements. The score is perhaps the most direct means of infusing a character with emotional qualities.’ (Designing sound for Animation, Robin Beauchamp, 2013)
What Beauchamp has told us here, makes it obvious that sound effects have a very big part in telling a characters story, and with this piece having no dialogue it makes the SFX extra important to the animation. After watching several clips from the shows Brett suggested, the realisation that everything the character does and is involved in needs to be backed up with sound effects for dramatic effect. As David Sonnenschein states, ‘Within every character, object and action on screen there can be generated a potential sound that may give further dramatic impact to the scene and story.’ (Sound Design: The expressive power of music, voice and sound effects in cinema, 2001)
