The Sound Collector - Lynn Smith (1982)

The Sound Collector - Lynn Smith

 (1982)

 

https://www.nfb.ca/film/sound_collector

This animation tells the story of two brothers who are stuck inside on a rainy day. The younger brother then teaches his older brother how to make up stories for fun using sounds that are going on around them.

The style of most of this animation is created from a combination of drawings and photomontage.
The images of the stories that the brothers tell are animated from paintings, in which the marks of the artist's hand are clear. This gives the effect of a child's creativity, which relates to the stories that the boys are creating themselves.
 As the title suggests, sound plays an important part in this animation, both those of speech and sound effects/background noises.
 The older brother both narrates the real life story and part of his and his younger brothers own made up story, so there are in fact two different narratives going on at once. This however does not create much confusion, as the different animation styles for each of these stories helps to differentiate one from the other.

The sounds going on in the background of the brothers lives are what tell their made up stories, for example, the sound of pots and pans was used to represent a suit of armour, and their father snoring was used to represent a lion.

I thought that the use of both visual and audio techniques in this animation was really clever. I liked the way that Smith incorporated more of the use of sound within this animation, as most animations are mainly about the visual elements to tell a story.