So having constant communication with the animator is really helpful as he can pitch over ideas and you can bounce between each other until you have a soundtrack you’re both satisfied with.
Whilst speaking with Brett today, he asked for two specific sounds in the animation, one was to portray horror as the Rhino teacher is first seen, and one to build up tension as the camera zooms in on a door at the end.
These seemed like easy enough tasks but I set about searching for how other sound designers make sounds achieve the goals that Brett was asking for.
‘Film composers have many means of creating tension, such as the shock chords (dissonant clusters of notes) featured prominently in the early animations of Warner Brothers and MGM studios… A build is a cue that combines harmonic tension and volume to create an expectation for a given event.’ (Designing Sound for Animation, Robin Beauchamp, 2013).
Both of these methods can be applied to the tasks that Brett has asked of me and if you see below you can hear the sounds I decided to choose. There isn’t a video to go with these yet but the first draft will be getting uploaded next week!
Tension Build Up:
Horror Chord: