Animation
Animated films
Scores for animation, where music and image carry the story — from a feature adaptation of Flatland to two award-winning shorts.
Animation gives a composer an unusual amount of room: with little or no dialogue, the music often carries the narrative outright. These three films share that quality — the score is not an accompaniment but a voice in the storytelling.
Ladd Ehlinger Jr. · 2007
Flatland
An animated feature adaptation of Edwin Abbott’s satirical novella — a two-dimensional world of geometric figures used to explore dimension, hierarchy, and the freedom to think beyond the known. I scored it from my own studio, using a pipe organ against a symphony orchestra to voice the quasi-religious social order, and madcap comedy set against the story’s darker turns. Nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2007 Annie Awards, the film is now used in classrooms worldwide to teach spatial and social ideas.
Amos Sussigan & Nikitha Mannam · 2013
Broken Wing
A hand-drawn short made by a team from Woodbury University — a wordless true story of loss and the possibility of rebirth. With no dialogue and muted effects, the score carries the narrative, stepping away from the busy “Mickey Mousing” of much animation toward soundscapes built around each character. It won Best Animated Movie at Lucerne and Best Animation at the New Jersey Film Festival, and screened from Newport Beach to the British Animation Film Festival. Watch on Vimeo →
Amos Sussigan & Nikitha Mannam · 2015
Swan Cake
A second short with Sussigan and Mannam: a Parisian patisserie chef who dreams of becoming a ballerina. Again the story is told in image and music, with only light location sound. Its heart is a dreamlike dance sequence composed alongside the animatics — I worked in the room next door as we locked the timings together — with an accordion for Paris, the clatter of the kitchen, and the idiosyncratic sounds of the ballet. Watch on Vimeo →
