Sound Effects (FX)
Robin Beauchamp · 2025
Animation provides sound editors with a silent space from which to create a unique sonic world. Whether cutting hard effects, developing backgrounds, creating design elements, or recording Foley effects, the absence of production audio associated with live-action film is often liberating. Over the years, identifiable styles of FX and Foley have emerged that are associated with innovated sound designers and Foley artists. In the beginning of the 20th century, Radio Theater emerged as a primary outlet for storytelling. The techniques developed for Radio Theater would become the foundation for sound in cinema. Treg Brown and Jimmy MacDonald are two of the early pioneers in sound design. Brown is known for his creative blending of subjective and realistic sounds to create the unique SFX style associated with the early Warner Brothers animation. Jimmy MacDonald is remembered for developing many of the innovated sound-making devices that can be heard in decades of Disney animated classics. In the 1950s, Wes Harrison “Mr. Sound Effects” developed a wide range of sound effects using vocalization techniques. His performances can be heard in many of the Disney and MGM productions of that decade. Wes proved that many of the best SFX are found right under our noses. When William Hanna and Joseph Barbera left MGM, they brought with them the expansive SFX library used for Tom and Jerry (1940). With the help of Pat Foley and Greg Watson, Hanna and Barbera developed one of the most iconic SFX libraries to date. Contemporary sound designers Gary Rydstrom, Randy Thom, Ben Burtt, and Dane Davis have forwarded the strong tradition established by the early innovators.