I possibly did myself no favours by rattling on about surround sound and Toy Story 3 and whatnot in my last post, and that was me giving the simplified version. I admit it, I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to tech and alike.
Anyway, my new best friends at Dolby are back on the road to COOL with this video…don’t believe me, believe in Beardyman himself:
“The piece was produced by Think Espionage and Dolby and is super sick in the face. If you like it, that makes you really cool”
Kinda animation related (and would definitely be nominated for this) so stick your headphones on have a nerd-tastic weekend!
Things have been pretty light on Pixar loving of late but that ain’t gonna last too long with the release of Toy Story 3. No doubt its going to be a masterpiece of style, technical wizardry, storytelling and everything else that they do all so well (its all guesswork until I see it but lets face it, Pixar don’t exactly do badfilms…). So ye can all drool over the visuals but what caught my eye is that Pixar, along with Skywalker Sound and Dolby Laboratories, have developed a new 7.1 surround sound configuration for the film to be viewed in – unfortunately Dolby are essentially men-in-white-coats and lack the creative genius of Pixar so the best name they could come up with was well….Dolby Surround 7.1.
Nerds, put your specs on, things are gonna get wordy!! … read more
So I’ve tried underwater recording before and to be fair, it didn’t really go great. I broke the mic, it didn’t sound right and was disappointing all round. So before Christmas, I had another crack at it to see if anything would work better. For this I needed a new location and since it was mid-floods, Cork and Galway seemed like as good a spot as any.
The beauty of working with animation is that the dialog is (usually…) nicely recorded in a quiet, sound proofed studio with candles, cushions, personal assistants to mop your brow or whatever else your diva’ish tendencies may require. In general, a lot of VO work is recorded one by one instead of as an ensemble performance which can sometimes lack a sense of unity and fun as there is no one to react to. Of course the good ones will still animate themselves with gestures and alike so the performance doesn’t ’sound’ too sterile but two of this winter’s better films have taken animated voice performances to a new level – and it turns out the secret was to treat it more like a live-action film shoot!
Because it’s Movember, and I wouldn’t be the first Brown Bagger to show off some dodgy hair-dos, I thought i might share a tip: Don’t try to develop designer fuzz whilst trying to hit impossible deadlines at work!
….I figure if you’re gonna blog you may as well go all-out with the personal shame!
So, anyone planned their Oscars’ night party yet? No? What do you mean it’s become a bit of a non-event? And you can’t stand Hugh Jackman – even after his song and dance entrance last year?! (30 Rock fans will be delighted to know its Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin for next year)
Anyway, whilst listening to a run down of the best films of the year so far, the Oscars was mentioned and who is in the running for best picture. Now historically, animation has rarely had a look in but this year, a change of heart over at the Academy might just change that. Is this the year animation can catch the big prize?
A quick glimpse at the past winners and losers reveals that the first and only animated film nominated for Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast in 1991 (which was beaten by Silence of the Lambs). … read more
I’ll be the first to admit it….I tend to only go to the cinema for:
a) A film i can’t wait to see eg. Star Wars (prequels, sequels, 3-D or whatever he does next), any new James Bond film etc
b) Something that i know will benefit from a cinema setting eg. the surround sound in the Transformers movies was flying all over the shop, all the time…in a brilliant way!
c) 2 hours of mindless entertainment eg. Mission Impossible III – butt-thumping explosions are just so much better in a cinema….even if Tom Cruise’s smug mug is 10 ft bigger…
The last animated film I went to in the cinema was The Incredibles (which I loved…) and I missed Wall-E so after hearing about just how good Pixar’s new film UP was, I thought it was time to see what all this stereoscopic fuss was about!
Without breaking into a modified chorus of Wet Wet Wet, you might never realise just how much animation is all around you.
And its pretty powerful stuff – I’m an audio guy so I won’t claim to offer any revolutionary insights into the art of animation – but i do know it can educate, make us laugh,cry, cause massive uproar (flick down a few pages to the interesting stuff!), tell a story or just entertain for a few minutes of the day….and it even makes pretty rubbish songs bearable. All these things combine to make some fairly memorable moments in music video history.
No, they weren’t talking to me…….instead they were commenting on Brown Bag’s new audio suite which has undergone a bit of a revolution. As you’ve probably gathered from our blog, the last 14 months has been pretty full-on getting Olivia, Noddy in Toyland and a smattering of commercials through post production, so this past month has been a welcome bit of downtime. We had taken our previous audio system as far as we could so it was time to move up in the digital world.
Following on from Richie’s recent blog about there being too much talking in animation, it kinda got me thinking about the way voice overs have changed….how they are used and more importantly, how they are cast.
Traditional voice artists can not only act using just the voice to convey emotions, but they know how to use it to its full potential. Many started out doing a lot of public radio drama/commercial spots whilst also going into TV & film. Although we didn’t know it at the time, guys like Mel Blanc (who is said to have voiced over 400 characters in 5000 cartoons throughout his career, including pretty much every Loony Tunes character) and Daws Butler (Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear) were the voice of many a childhood. … read more
