When you're watching an animated feature, often it's the music that helps to set the tone of the scene. It tells you if you should laugh, if you should gasp, if you should feel sad or horrified or frightened. It pulls you into the building tension of action scenes, gets you wound up, then crashes into a breathless crescendo at the scene's climax. It even punctuates actions to give them impact, above even the sound effects.
A hard roll of drums as soldiers march, blending into the chant of determined voices. A heavy bass thump right when the hero hits the edge of a precipice and his stomach drops along with the sound, even as a counterpoint shrill sends a thrill up the spine. It's all so perfectly timed, but how? How does the music match the animation so precisely?
Usually, the final music is composed after the animation is completed - but a rough soundtrack, known as a "scratch track," is created before the animation begins. A composer will work with the production team to discuss the tone the music needs to take, the length of the individual scores, and other audio needs, including working with voice actors and vocalists (for musical / singing numbers like the ones so popular in Disney films) to come up with a scratch track. This is often timed to what's called an animatic or story reel, which is a mock-up animation that uses still images from storyboarding and planning to help time the soundtrack properly.
The animation is timed and planned according to that soundtrack, to synchronize the motions and mouth movements with the voices and the background score.
A notable example of an animated feature film specifically composed to music is Fantasia, where the entire point of the film was to create an animation that reflected the story the music told.
Later the final score is added in, and the animation can be edited in post-production to make sure everything fits together properly and ensure the timing lines up perfectly; it's easier to edit the animation (both in post-production and during the actual animation process) to better fit the music than it is to completely re-compose a track to fit a change in the animation.
Sound effects are also added later, and aren't part of the scratch track; while with full-length scores it's easier to plan the animation to match the music, with quick sound effects it's much easier to add the sound effects in final editing. Those are just quick sound bytes that can be moved around.
You may have done something similar when creating your animations, even if you're working rough without a dope sheet and not pre-planning. If you've chosen to animate something to a specific song, and have imported that song into your 2D or 3D animation program, as you work you'll find yourself tweaking the timing and motions in your animation to better match the music. You can also see examples of animations timed to music with fan-created AMVs, where fans will pick a song and use clips from their favorite animations to create a new animation that matches the rhythm and beats of the chosen song. Even though they aren't creating the animation themselves or composing the music, the heart of the process isn't all that different.
Although post-production synching is the typical method, that wasn't always the case (and there are still rare exceptions now). Before the 1930s, usually animations were made without the soundtrack, and the soundtrack was composed afterwards. This includes recording voices, which is why in older cartoons, at times the voices don't seem to quite match the animated mouth movements.
A hard roll of drums as soldiers march, blending into the chant of determined voices. A heavy bass thump right when the hero hits the edge of a precipice and his stomach drops along with the sound, even as a counterpoint shrill sends a thrill up the spine. It's all so perfectly timed, but how? How does the music match the animation so precisely?
Usually, the final music is composed after the animation is completed - but a rough soundtrack, known as a "scratch track," is created before the animation begins. A composer will work with the production team to discuss the tone the music needs to take, the length of the individual scores, and other audio needs, including working with voice actors and vocalists (for musical / singing numbers like the ones so popular in Disney films) to come up with a scratch track. This is often timed to what's called an animatic or story reel, which is a mock-up animation that uses still images from storyboarding and planning to help time the soundtrack properly.
The animation is timed and planned according to that soundtrack, to synchronize the motions and mouth movements with the voices and the background score.
A notable example of an animated feature film specifically composed to music is Fantasia, where the entire point of the film was to create an animation that reflected the story the music told.
Later the final score is added in, and the animation can be edited in post-production to make sure everything fits together properly and ensure the timing lines up perfectly; it's easier to edit the animation (both in post-production and during the actual animation process) to better fit the music than it is to completely re-compose a track to fit a change in the animation.
Sound effects are also added later, and aren't part of the scratch track; while with full-length scores it's easier to plan the animation to match the music, with quick sound effects it's much easier to add the sound effects in final editing. Those are just quick sound bytes that can be moved around.
You may have done something similar when creating your animations, even if you're working rough without a dope sheet and not pre-planning. If you've chosen to animate something to a specific song, and have imported that song into your 2D or 3D animation program, as you work you'll find yourself tweaking the timing and motions in your animation to better match the music. You can also see examples of animations timed to music with fan-created AMVs, where fans will pick a song and use clips from their favorite animations to create a new animation that matches the rhythm and beats of the chosen song. Even though they aren't creating the animation themselves or composing the music, the heart of the process isn't all that different.
Although post-production synching is the typical method, that wasn't always the case (and there are still rare exceptions now). Before the 1930s, usually animations were made without the soundtrack, and the soundtrack was composed afterwards. This includes recording voices, which is why in older cartoons, at times the voices don't seem to quite match the animated mouth movements.
