Sound Design in the American Animated Film

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Starting from a compact history of the American animation film, from its early stages, evoking the classics of its Golden Age (the animations of Disney, Warner Bros., MGM etc.) to the most recent 3D-animation films (Pixar, DreamWorks etc.), the book analyzes the technical and especially the aesthetic evolution of the sound accompanying animations through decades. The work recalls numberless examples of American animation shorts and features referring thus to a wide range of artistic means through which sound (dialogue, sound effects, music) complement the image and contribute to creating comic effects or characterize heroes, describing at the same time the aesthetic approaches of the sound track in the representation of dreams, leitmotifs, in creating counterpoints, in constructing suspense and the silence with multiple aesthetic values, in underlining specific animation clichés and geographic or cultural references.