Two NFB Shorts That Rethink the Relationship Between Animation and Sound

If your animation process begins with pictures and ends with a track underneath them, two National Film Board of Canada shorts offer a different starting point. Begone Dull Care and Synchromy make the relationship between sound and image the central creative question.

This is a research-led viewing recommendation, not a claim of a new release or a firsthand screening report. The pair is selected for a specific reason: the NFB’s production descriptions document two contrasting approaches that remain useful to animators, editors, musicians and motion designers.

Begone Dull Care: music as a creative partner

The NFB credits Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren with directing, animating and editing Begone Dull Care. Its description explains that they painted directly onto film, making a visual interpretation of music performed by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Keep both filmmakers in the frame when discussing the work. Reducing it to a single celebrated name obscures a collaboration the official credits make explicit. The musicians belong in that account too: the relationship is not between a lone animator and an anonymous supply of “jazz.”

A useful question to take into viewing is whether a visual response must mark every beat. Watch for moments when you notice a change in density, pace or emphasis, and ask what relationship it establishes with the music. Those are viewing prompts, not claims about particular shots.

Synchromy: a shared mechanism for seeing and hearing

For Synchromy, the NFB describes McLaren’s use of optical techniques to compose the soundtrack and transfer its patterns into the picture area. Its credits identify Ron Moore for optical effects and Roger Lamoureux for re-recording alongside McLaren’s roles.

The distinction matters. This is not simply a recommendation to synchronize an edit more tightly to a song. It invites a question about construction: what happens when the visual system and the sound system have a common source?

For contemporary creators, the productive connection is conceptual rather than technological. You do not need to reproduce the optical process to consider whether timing, repetition or another shared rule could organize both parts of a project.

Try a comparison, not an imitation

After following the official film links, make a small study using your own materials. Choose one original sound you can legally use and three simple shapes. First, let the shapes respond to the sound. Then reverse the direction: create a short visual sequence and build a sound response to it.

Keep notes on what changes when one medium leads. Does the second pass reveal a timing choice you would otherwise have missed? Does a pause become more important than an extra movement? There is no required aesthetic result.

Do not copy the films’ imagery or lift their soundtracks for the exercise. A publicly accessible film page is not a reuse license. Check the NFB’s applicable terms before any screening, excerpt or redistribution.

Bring the method back to your work

The point of this pairing is not that current tools have made older techniques obsolete—or that analogue production is inherently more authentic. It is that a production method can change the question an artist asks.

For another perspective on sound beyond a conventional performance, explore our Tarek Atoui story. Then join the Film & Video conversation: in your work, does the image lead the sound, or the other way around?