Whap! Zing! and A holler!

After speaking with the animator Brett about the last feedback sheet he sent over, he felt that a certain scene was in need of something a little extra. There is a scene where the Rhino teacher falls off his chair and lands on the floor, a book then proceeds to fall on his head.

Brett had asked for these falling off his chair and book falling sounds to be louder, bigger and make the pain of the book falling on his head more obvious.

I looked in to ways on how to do this and came across an article by Michael Geisler, who talks about the noises used in cartoons when the character is getting hurt.

‘Like the way Bugs Bunny would hit someone with a baseball bat and there was this, “WHAP!” sound that was so indignant, or when accompanied by an anvil hit, made it even more painful. This was not a lifelike use of sound. It was bigger than life, like Bill Cosby waiting for the perfect moment to tell a punchline. This was true comedy.’.

I had previously used sounds like slams and crashes when the rhino had fell, but never thought to fatten it up with sounds that aren’t really there, but are linked to the situation, just like Bugs Bunny with the anvil hit.

So I decided to add a few extra sounds in on top of this scene, including a descending whistle to show the book falling into the shot, and even a hammer slamming into a desk for a really loud, sharp bang to really bring home the fall and the book.

The information on this article was helpful as it allowed us to then go back over the project and see if there were any other oppurtunities for us to use this process, such as footsteps and even a clown laughing in the background of one shot.