Ryan Leach : Music for Animation

Disney/Pixar’s latest feature “Up” is now out in theaters. The way the reviews are going, it sounds like it could be an instant classic. The film’s score was written by Michael Giaccino, whose score to Pixar’s Ratatouille was probably the best work he’s ever done. The score for Up has a nice blend of traditional orchestral scoring with 30s jazz elements, I’m looking forward to seeing how it works for the film.

Apparently the score is only available via mp3, with no physical release for sale.

Welcome to the first in a long series of animation score analysis. These articles will explore the inner workings of how music serves the story and the action, comparisons to other animated films, and techniques and tricks used by the composers. I’ll try to keep the technical music jargon to a minimum, please excuse me if at times  I digress into talking about dominant scales and ostinato patterns.

Our first analysis will be of the Looney Tunes classic “Rabbit Seasoning” from 1952, directed by Chuck Jones with music by Carl Stalling.

The cartoon opens with the familiar Merrie Melodies theme, which is loosely based on the folk song “Merrily We Roll Along” (also known as London Bridge. It’s most recognizable in the first few notes “London bridge is falling down…” before it goes off into a variation). This is followed by a brass fanfare on our hero: Bugs Bunny! The credits for the cartoon are an instrumental version of the “What’s Up Doc” theme by Carl Stalling, which appears in countless Bugs Bunny cartoons.

The comic fades up on a sign that reads “If you’re looking for FUN —”, with low woodwinds on a soft major chord. There is a subtle but important key change on the opening of the cartoon from the previous music, which says “OK we’re starting off in a new place”. Pizzicato strings and flute pluck out a short melodic line, which invites playfulness and a question about what’s to come. As the camera moves to the next sign and adds to our suspense the whole chord moves up in pitch, where the same melody is repeated in the a key. The whole thing repeats exactly the same up in pitch again, with each repetition building excitement and tension.  Finally on the fourth sign, which reveals the big mystery that “It’s Rabbit Season!”, we have made it all the way back up to the major chord we started on and the melody ends on a definitive note. The tension we have been building finally rests, as we are back at our comfortable home once more.

We can take two lessons from this. When the visual is repeating, the music should be repeating. Every sign we saw was almost like a repeat of the sign before it, with the only difference being that the text is slightly more intriguing. Therefore to keep consistency, the music should be a repeat of what we heard before, but raised in pitch to be slightly more intriguing. The other thing to notice is the feeling of resolution on the last sign. For tension to effectively build, it must also release.

Then we are free to enter new territory as the strings build up into a dark fanfare over the sea of “Rabbit Season” signs. But don’t think we’re treading too far away, because we’re immediately back into repetition land when we get to another series of three signs. Just as before, the music plays a motif and then repeats it in a higher pitch. Stalling does a clever move though, he not only makes the motif higher but also faster. So as our signs go from “150ft” to “75ft” to “25ft”, our music is moving faster and faster to play along with the shortening in distance. The thing to remember here is that the music is evolving only as much as the story is evolving. To have a different melody on each sign makes little sense; we would lack a sense of consistency and although we may not realize it, the effect would be somewhat confusing and rambling.

We are then introduced to Daffy, hammering away. The music sticks closely to the minute action, adding to the sense of frenzy. As he stamps the ground we have our first use of rhythm, the first time that there is any kind of groove that we could tap our foot along to. Rather than just pluck on each stamp, the groove seems to lend a sense of purpose to Daffy’s overall task. This moment is about stamping, not about each stamp. When Daffy tip toes away and the pizzicato strings pluck each of his steps, then it’s about sneaky steps again.

The use of a groove leads to an interesting point, something that the composer must constantly be asking for every frame of the cartoon. What is the music saying here? Of course there is a lot of gray area here, but generally individual hits and plucks say “look at the action”, while grooves and sustained elements say “feel something”.

The pizzicato strings as Daffy tip toe are a great use of orchestration, as they immediately imply sneakiness and mischief. Although the 5 seconds are generally all the same, Stalling does a nice job of using the motif on a different pitch for each repetition to keep it from feeling static and give us a sense that things are moving forward.

When we meet Elmer, we have a bit of both uses of music going on. We’re following his sneaky steps with the bass line, while also adding a touch of quiet tension with the flute trills.

As Elmer sticks his gun into the rabbit hole we have a classic use of a timpani roll, providing nervous tension, and a sharp low string melody giving it a sinister edge. When we pan over and see Bugs, calm and relaxed, we immediately are taken to his perspective with the happy and non threatening flute. When the joke is a deep contrast between what one character feels (Elmer’s threats) vs another (Bugs’ nonchalance), a strong contrast in orchestration is very effective.

As Bugs saunters over, we again have a groove. The groove says we’re calm, we’re with Bugs and Bugs thinks this is amusing. This mood continues all the way until Daffy is perplexed and with the help of a trumpet hit, he snaps us out of it. Again a groove as Daffy marches over to Elmer, this time the groove wanting us to feel his anger and exasperation. The next series of musical hits all closely follow the action, this time for the opposite reason that we’re not meant to “feel” Daffy hand Elmer the gun, but the music should help make the action pronounced and assertive.

Only 2 minutes into the cartoon and we’ve already seen a number of brilliantly executed techniques, which Stalling continues to use throughout. The rest of the cartoon can be analyzed based on those same principles, but there is one other significant moment worth pointing out.

At about 5 minutes into the cartoon, Bugs dresses up as a beautiful women (is there a Bug Bunny cartoon that he doesn’t cross dress??) and sends Elmer into a daze. Here Stalling uses the technique that gained him a lot of praise and an equal amount of criticism. He quotes the standard “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” by Bing Crosby. Stalling had the go-ahead from Warner Bros. to quote anything in their catalog that he pleased. He used that permission to great effect. Using popular songs that the audience had previous associations with was like a shortcut to their feelings. When you hear that song, you instantly understand that Bugs is appealing and mesmerizing to Elmer. The song goes on for 45 seconds, which for Looney Tunes is a very long time. But it can go on this long because it’s purpose is to make you feel the sweet lull that Elmer is feeling (if not to feel it, at least to understand it). The specific actions aren’t what you should be focusing on, but the mood of the scene.

The technique of incorporating pop references in the score comes from the silent film era, when organ players had a book of music with music from the classical repertoire, “tagged” with a few descriptive words (“Heroic, Triumphant”, “Villain, Sinister”). The players would flip their books to the appropriate mood as they watched the film, with the assurance that if the hero came on screen and they played “Heroic” the audience would be able to associate the music with the right mood. This is effectively still used in just about all scoring today, as you expect to hear a certain type of music for a certain type of scene. We’ve come to expect driving percussion during a chase scene and sweeping strings for a love scene, and essentially Stalling is relying on these kinds of expectations and associations to support what’s going on in the story.

If you have a chance to watch this cartoon I urge you to keep some of these ideas in mind, and the next time you’re watching any cartoon pay attention to how the composer decides when you should pay attention to the action and when you should pay attention to what you supposed to be feeling.

This past weekend I had a chance to see The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story at The Regent theater in Westwood. Overall the film was an incredibly enjoyable biography of Robert and Richard Sherman, two of the greatest songwriters in the Disney legacy. The film was very well put together, with a lot of fun clips from the brothers’ songs and movies, and interviews with a great cast of celebrities including people like Roy Disney, Julie Andrews and Ben Stiller.

Some of the best moments of the film occurred whenever Walt Disney made an appearance, or the boys were sharing a story about him. Despite the close relationship the Shermans had with him, the film seemed to treat Walt almost like a mythical figure, which I guess is the Disney way.

As much fun as the film was, there was a major emphasis on the “troubled relationship” between the two brothers. Although they kept making reference to the tension between them and the rift it created between their families, they never seemed to really explain what went wrong. Right from the introduction the filmmakers (Robert and Richard’s sons) seemed like they were going to reveal to the world the dark secrets that made their relationship so strained. In the end there were a few moments of “I don’t want to talk about that, it’s too hard”, and that was that. No great mystery revealed, for the most part we just saw moments of great success and happiness.

I highly recommend anyone who loves Disney films to watch this documentary for an enjoyable behind the scenes look at some great Disney history.

Opening today in LA, New York and San Francisco is “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story”. The film is a documentary about the legendary songwriting team that wrote many amazing classic Disney songs for movies like Mary Poppins, the Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh, Sword in the Stone, and so many more!

I have not yet seen the film but will be back with a review after I do.

I recently picked up a copy of the CD “Toon Tunes: 50 Classic Cartoon Songs“. I grabbed it without really looking at what tracks were on it and honestly I was expecting the album to be mediocre. I was happily proven wrong: this album is a goldmine of great cartoon theme songs! There are some amazing classics on there, all the way from Popeye and The Flinstones, to Captain Planet and Animaniacs.

What I found very interesting was that some of themes sounded awesome and brought back great memories, while others seemed to fall flat and I could not even remember what cartoons they were from. I decided that it would be interesting to take a closer look at these themes and see if we can figure out why some are hits and others are duds.

This will be the first article in a series on “Toon Tunes” in which I examine what’s working and what isn’t about different classic cartoon themes.

The first theme I want to talk about is “Felix the Cat“, written by Winston Sharples for the 1958 TV series. I didn’t really remember this one, but as soon as I heard it I fell completely in love! It is probably my favorite theme off of the whole CD.

What makes it great:

• The tune is bouncy and fun, but it also gets stuck in your head. The catchiness comes from the short little phrases (Felix the cat. REST. The wonderful, wonderful cat. REST) The succinct phrases are easy to hear and understand. Of course playing the tune over and over doesn’t hurt for making it stick either!
• The orchestration is very unique, and probably the best part of the entire song. Voice, clarinet, electric guitar, celesta (a bell-like piano type instrument), and bass. The celesta adds a very fresh sound to the piece, but equally interesting is the muted electric guitar which plays muted the entire time. I imagine for that 1958 using an electric guitar was pretty “cutting edge”, like using electronica sounds today.
• I really like Anne Bennett’s performance. Although her voice feels a tad “weak” in the sense that shes singing kind of lightly, I think that ads a certain intimacy and makes it sound more like she’s having fun with it all. It’s like Felix is a good friend of hers and she wants to let us know how great he is.

As much as there is to love, I’ll admit that the theme has a few shortcomings:

• In only 1:47, they manage to sing the same 2 verses three times. The lyrics get really old by the last time you hear them. Arguably this helps with the stickiness of the tune, but I wonder why they couldn’t come up with something different for that middle verse?
• The panning is really weird. I guess it was the late 50s and stereo was this crazy new concept, but having the singer’s voice all the way to the left not only makes her hard to hear (she has to fight with the muted guitar), but it makes her seem slightly less important than she should. Being the melody and the story, the vocal should be front and center.

Overall I love this theme and am very glad I stumbled upon it!