Cartoon Cutups

Jun 1, 2000 12:00 PM, By Erik Hawkins

           

MUSIC EDITING FOR TV ANIMATION

Courtesy nickelodeon

The wacky undersea world of SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon, is officially a hit. Recently touted by TV Guide as the most watched Saturday-morning kids' show, this highly original series springs from the mind of marine biologist Steve Hillenburg-which explains the show's oceanic slant. It features a host of kooky saltwater characters: the protagonist, SpongeBob, a pants-wearing, rectangular, bucktoothed sea sponge with goo-goo eyes; his pet snail, Gary; his best friend, Patrick the starfish; an egotistical clainet-playing neighbor, Squidward; and SpongeBob's love interest, the beautiful Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel who lives in an underwater biodome. The show's theme is simple: SpongeBob's simpleminded antics, although well intentioned, continually wreak havoc. * With such a unique cast and setting, the show has ample room for an equally unusual musical score. But Nickelodeon isn't hiring famous composers to perform original music for every episode. SpongeBob SquarePants is a new show wading into untested waters (no pun intended), so budget constraints are a real consideration. And the madcap production pace of an animated series-cutting all the music for a 30-minute episode usually takes about a week-leaves little time for writing original music.

Enter Nick Carr, an ace music editor able to weave mind-blowing musical backdrops with only a small collection of home studio gear and some needle-drop music (prerecorded music purchased for commercial use, also known as production music). During his two decades in the business, Carr has received accolades including an Emmy and a Golden Reel Award (given to outstanding editors by the Motion Picture Sound Editors). He has lent his talent to shows such as The Really Mighty Ducks (Disney), Pepper Ann (Disney), Rocko's Modern Life (Nickelodeon), Modern Marvels (Discovery Channel), and Power Rangers (Saban Entertainment). Carr's editing expertise and creative use of music in SpongeBob SquarePants have garnered much applause, most recently a 1999 Golden Reel Award for music editing in an animated television show.

CORNER STUDIO

Upon first hearing the SpongeBob soundtrack, most people would never imagine Carr's studio to be the humble space that it is. Housed in a small abode precipitously perched in Los Angeles's Studio City hills (where he lives with his wife and business partner, Chiho, and their wiener dog, Oscar), Carr's entire studio fits into one corner of his living room. In the opposite corner, taking up almost as much space as his equipment, are two large bookshelves packed with music-library CDs. Within these four walls, Carr does some of his best work-a stone's throw away from multimillion-dollar movie and television studios such as Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Nickelodeon, and Universal Pictures.

Carr's system centers on a SoftSplice 4-track hard disk editing system hooked up to a Macintosh Quadra 650. The SoftSplice is a little-known piece of gear from the now bankrupt company Digital Expressions. A 19-by-5.25-inch rack unit, the SoftSplice communicates with the Mac via SCSI. It handles all of the audio files and processing; the computer functions solely as a front end. Proprietary software installed on the Mac controls all of the SoftSplice's functions (see Fig. 1).

Nick Carr (left) in the studio with sound effects editor Jeff Hutchins (center) and director Steve Hillenburg.

Photo: Erik Hawkins

The SoftSplice itself has only digital I/O (AES/EBU and S/PDIF); it has no converters. The unit uses a companion 18-bit A/D/A converter for monitoring, and a Tascam DA-30mkII DAT recorder acts as both source and backup medium. (You can back up the SoftSplice's internal hard drive to DAT.) The converter is normaled to the AES/EBU input and the DAT to the S/PDIF; you can select I/O formats directly from the interface software. The machine can read and write SMPTE in a variety of formats (24, 25, 29.97, 30, and 30 drop).

A 3/4-inch Sony VP-9000 video deck (for playback only) that Carr bought used for $600 feeds a 32-inch Toshiba television (which doubles as the household TV set) to provide picture. Professionals in film and television post-production generally use 3/4-inch video work tapes, although 1/2-inch VHS tapes are also common, and digital video is quickly gaining popularity.

The work tapes are striped with 29.97-frames-per-second (fps) non-drop-frame SMPTE time code. The SMPTE track acts as the studio's master sync source: a Y-cable splits the signal and routes it to both the SoftSplice and a Tascam DA-88 digital multitrack recorder outfitted with an SY88 SMPTE card. All music is delivered on DA-88 tapes, an industry standard.

MIDI sound modules, samplers, and effects units fill a waist-high rack shelf (see the sidebar "Modest Digs" for a complete list of Carr's gear). Everything runs through a 24-input Roland M-24E console and is monitored on a pair of Boss MA12C self-powered speakers. About 10 inches tall, these diminutive speakers are only a little bit bigger than typical multimedia speakers. Carr says that the motion picture industry uses these widely as a common point of reference, and he stresses that since he isn't actually mixing the music, high-end monitors aren't necessary. The MA12Cs also emulate the sound of TV speakers, through which most people hear SpongeBob.

COUNTDOWN TO PICTURE

Two 11-minute segments compose a 30-minute show; the other 8 minutes are dedicated to commercials. For Carr, the editing process begins when the director, Steve Hillenburg, faxes the spotting notes to him (see Fig. 2). (Spotting is the process of viewing picture and identifying the parts that need sound or music.) These notes detail what type of music each cue should be and where the cues should appear. Shortly after the fax arrives, a courier delivers a 3/4-inch work tape of the final picture and rough dialogue.

In animation, the dialogue is recorded first, and then the visual element is created to match it. Sometimes the rough dialogue is kept for the final mix; other times it's rerecorded in a process called automatic dialogue replacement (ADR). Once the dialogue is done, Carr begins to lay in the music for the final product. At the same time, Jeff Hutchins, the series' sound effects designer and editor, is busy laying in the appropriate pops, squeaks, explosions, and footfalls. Rarely does Carr hear the sound effects before the final mix.

At this stage, Carr cuts the first round of music according to Hillenburg's notes. This is often easier said than done, for although the spotting notes are nicely detailed with SMPTE I/O times, the timing is usually off. By the time Carr gets the work tape, Hillenburg's spotted times have shifted, often due to picture edits. If Hillenburg cuts out several frames in the middle of the show, the rest of the picture moves up by that number of frames, and nothing beyond that point corresponds to the director's notes. Carr has no magic solution to this problem. "I just have to pay close attention to the description in the spotting notes and trust my intuition."