Initial reading and observations
During the first week of the assignment, our group made the decision that we would cover the article “Hanna-Barbera’s Cacophony: Sound Effects and the Production of Movement” (July 2021). After we made the decision we all went on and started reading the article and taking notes on all the points we felt were important. As we read the article, we all noticed a few things that were quite apparent with this article. The first noticeable aspect was that it was separated into 3 respective categories which made it much easier to pin-point what each team-member could discuss in the presentation, but the other and more critical aspect was that this article seemed to repeat itself on certain points numerous times in the different categories of the article to the point that it felt a bit too repetitive. We all collectively agreed that this could be one point we could make when being a bit more critical towards the article and the statement it was trying to make. Below you can find some of the notes I took to get all the important points of the article to which I could then start structuring my presentation slides.
Development of My Presentation Slides
Once we all got our notes, my group all came together and began discussing what categories we would discuss, I decided that I would discuss the category of building a library for two reasons. The first being that I found the idea of how sound-effect libraries are developed as well as the methods of adding sound-effects to animation quite interesting, the second factor was that the majority of my notes covered this category so I felt I had a sufficient body of information to write my slides around them. Once our group was satisfied and had a clear idea of what each of us would be discussing in the presentation, I then began developing my slides. The main points I detailed were the two most frequently used methods of adding sound-effects to early pipe-line animation which in this case were “Performance-based Synchronization” where a Foley artist would perform with the musicians and work to a set of inputs on behalf of the conductor to add sound effects to the soundtrack in real-time. This method allowed for much more fluent sound effects that were geared to fit an event or movement perfectly, This was Disney’s favored method of adding sound-effects and a perfect example that was detailed in the article was Disney’s 1941 film “The Reluctant Dragon”. The only drawback to this method is the fact that due to being played in real-time, the Foley artist had to time their sound effects perfectly to fit into the soundtrack which for certain sound effects could be immensely difficult to pull off due to the possible methodology required.
The second method that was used and the primary method used by Hanna Barbera in this case was using a library of sound effects. This method was brought on by technological innovations in technologies used in animation development. A Foley artist could develop a sound effect and record it and then repeat it over and over onto 1000 ft reels of Optical film (which would be replace by Hanna-Barbera with Magnetic Tape from the 1960s onward with their productions). With these reels, The film editor (Not to dissimilar to a video/audio editor in today’s terminology) could then cut the sound effects out of the reel and then cut them into the animation’s audio tract directly. This method allowed for sound effects to be used over and over again and for said sound effects to be kept consistent especially within episodic animation series. This also meant that sound effects could be recycled
and used for multiple productions at once which Hanna-Barbera used quite frequently to reduce the cost of developing whole new sound effects for every production they worked on. However, this is its main drawback as having the same sound effects recycled and used among several different productions at once and having them used to convey the majority of the off screen movement in Hanna-Barbera’s works meant that these sound effects could become rather stilted after time and also the constant recycling of sound effects across different productions was glaringly noticeable even to the public based on some criticisms highlighted in the article by Leonard Maltin and an unnamed child stating “Even a 10 year old could recognize (and tire of) the repetition in each show; the same canned music, the same gags, the same sound effects, and gimmicks, and the same characters, only in different guises’ (Matlin 1975).
When it comes to how Hanna-Barbera started their library. Once William Hanna and Joseph Barbera left MGM’s animation department in 1957 following it closure and establishing Hanna-barbera studios the same year, they took on MGM’s former film editor Greg Watson who took some of the more complicated sound effects from MGM’s old library and then from this selection began producing a whole new library of sound effects for Hanna-Barbera’s animations. Some of MGM’s original sound effects can be especially heard in some of Hanna-Barbera’s earlier shows such as “The Ruff and Reddy Show”(1957-1962).
Conclusion
Overall this article observation did give me alot of insight into how Hanna-Barbera’s sound effects were incredibly significant to their animation productions and I felt the research for my group’s presentation was sufficient evidence to show my understanding of the category I decided to discuss. If I were to do a project like this again I may want to be less intense with my notes as I spent so much time writing them up that I was able to cover notes on all aspects of the article within the deadline to complete the assignment. I intend to improve this practice with future endeavors.
Bibliography
Sullivan, P. (2021). Hanna-Barbera’s Cacophony: Sound Effects and the Production of Movement. Animation, 16(1-2), pp.21–35. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477211025660.
The Reluctant Dragon. (1941). [Film/Movie] Hollywood LA USA: RKO Radio Pictures.
The Ruff and Reddy Show. (1957). [Animated TV Show] Manhattan New York USA: National Broadcasting Company (NBC) .