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Sound editing

Once the animations, the sets, the photography, the music, the video editing were completed, I thought that by now the bulk of the work had been done.... Instead I found myself in front of another effort: the sound! I hadn't calculated how demanding it would be to create the sound-desing and sound editing from scratch... In fact, every single cut of the film had to be completed by all the sounds present in the sequence... It took months of work to annotate each single sound and noise to then find a way to reproduce, record, adjust, modify and edit them in each sequence... For example, how many sounds are there in 5 seconds by Somalia94 - The Ilaria Alpi affair?

 
One minute

How many drawings there are in Somalia94 - Il caso Ilaria Alpi's one minute of animation? I have not counted them but just look at them to understand how much work there is including layouts, rough drawings and finishes... In addition we have to include storyboard drawings, character/mecha-design, backgrounds, etc.... All multiplied per 39!

 

The photography

There are many phases of processing in the creation of a cartoon: script, storyboard, layouts, animations, sets, sounds, music, dubbing, editing and photography... Among the extras of the DVD released by Dynit of Somalia94 - Il caso Ilaria Alpi there is an interesting video concerning this process. It shows the various steps to achieve a scene by filming together animations, backgrounds, lights, filters, camera movements, special effects, etc. In addition, some shots cut out of the film are reproduced in full screen. Don't miss to watch it!

 

The sea

The sea is often present in Somalia94 - Il caso Ilaria Alpi. I didn't want to use the usual "synthetic" sea in CGI (0) because it would have been too realistic for a hand-drawn cartoon, "seceding" too much from the other drawings. So I painted one (1), I tilted it (2), I made virtual copies and put them together (3), I added an optical distortion effect (4), a heavy colored photographic filter (5), I roughly drew shadows (6) and a little foam (7), and overlaied them on the drawing (8). The result was an "animated drawing" coordinated with the rest of the film (9).

 

The Ilaria's tape recorder

Perhaps the youngers doesn't know that before the ipods and smartphones to record interviews and voice notes were used the tape cassette recorders, such as the Ilaria Alpi's dictaphone reproduced in a scene of our Somalia94 - Il caso Ilaria Alpi.

 

Multi-layer

SOften the scenography of a cartoon is composed of several layers, as in this sequence of our Somalia94 - Il caso Ilaria Alpi: on the main background of a sunrise (poster-colors on paper) another layer of clouds was added (acrylic-colors on acetate), then the animation was placed (the airplane), all shoot by adding filters and lights.

 

Computer animation

Somalia94 is a work drawn in cel-animation (also called frame-by-frame animation). Only in 3 sequences I used computer animation (CGA): the feather that falls into Ilaria's dream, the flock of thrushes (where animating all the birds by hand would have been too difficult) and the ventilation fan in the scene Ilaria's escape (drawing it by hand would not even have been so difficult, but the work mole I expected was still a lot so I decided to make a "synthetic" one); "masking" them to seem drawn like the rest of the film. These are the only 3 sequences "drawn by computer".

 

"Backstage"

In some sequences of Somalia94 the shot widens to show the edges of the background. Actually this would be an error, but in this case made on purpose: a way to highlight the craftsmanship of the work to the audience.





Cels' process


Dynit's brocure


Theatrical poster


Wallpaper


Wallpaper


Wallpaper


Wallpaper


Wallpaper


Storyboard


Character design (Ilaria Alpi)


Character design (Miran Hrovatin)


Character design (Giancarlo Marocchino)


Mecha-design


Mecha-design (videocamera)


Layout


Layout

Perhaps the least noticeable thing when watching a cartoon are the backgrounds used to compose the sets, the one behind the characters, which must be drawn with shapes that follow the movements of the camera. In Somalia94 - Il caso Ilaria Alpi there's one in particular used for the long vertical plane Ilaria's dream sequence of the feather that falls with truly anomalous dimensions: 30 x 99 cm! Almost a meter tall! And all hand painted...


Background (poster color on paper, gouache)


Background (digital)


Background (poster color on paper, gouache)


Sample of ink & paint


Pilot (up), movie (down)

Somalia94 - The Ilaria Alpi affair ©2016 Marco Giolo, all rights reserved

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