About the project
This project was a collaboration between Sonic College and The Animation Workshop (TAW), where our task was post-production on the third-year students’ final animation project. The work lasted for about a month. Throughout the process, we met several times to discuss the general tone of voice and the aesthetics of the animation.
The story is about a father and his child, exploring a turning point in their relationship where difficulties begin to surface. The child has reached a stage where the father needs to let go in order for the child to find their own environment in which to live.
For this animation, we were instructed to create a minimalistic sound design, striving for the concept of Ma—a Japanese term for emptiness and the aesthetic of calm. To achieve this, we tried to let the ambiences take on the role of storytelling. For example, we blended whale sounds into the waves reaching the child, as an attempt to give the sea a personality—calling for the child to begin the next chapter of life.
My role was very diverse. I had the primary responsibility for the ambiences and for placing them in a well-balanced way in Dolby Atmos. Furthermore, I was in charge of mixing everything together and ensuring that our effort to achieve the aforementioned concept Ma would be successful. It took a lot of time to get the dynamics right and to make the ambiences tell the story — especially when all you have are wind and waves, which sound almost the same. But in the end, the animation achieved the dynamic shifts that made the ambiance feel both foreign and dangerous, and at other moments, quiet and peaceful.
