Vision, sound, music, and our minds

I am fascinated by our growing scientific understanding of our senses, brains, and minds. Today I present some reports originally presented on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's weekly science radio program, Quirks and Quarks. (If you're interested in the world around you, I think you should listen to it every week.) These reports impressed me and give me insights into how I'm making movies. Particularly when I want to trick you into thinking a patch of colored light on a screen is thinking and feeling, or maybe even dancing.


You can also follow progress in our understanding of music. Here's the web page for a Quirks and Quarks radio documentary that introduces the subject.

We Got the Music In Us June 15 2002

Here's the link to the mp3 audio file:
We Got the Music In Us running time 25:41

Fast forward to 2006, Dr. Daniel Levitin writes a book: This is Your Brain on Music. He's interviewed on Quirks and Quarks on December 9; here's the page from the Quirks site:

This Is Your Brain On Music December 9, 2006

The mp3 file of the interview is here:
This Is Your Brain On Music running time 16:45


We're discovering the mechanisms by which music goes directly to our emotions, before our conscious mind is even aware of what's going on. Mood music has always been important in movies but can be overused - and I want to understand where the line is between "just right" and "in your face".

It's not just music that gets processed before it gets near our consciousness. Here's a related story from November 3, 2007. Towards the end of the story they note that movies are totally dependent on the ventriloquist's illusion. It certainly helped me, as an animator, understand just what's going on when I get a drawing to talk.

Ventriloquism and the Brain November 3, 2007

Here's the audio file:
Ventriloquism and the Brain running time 8:57


As an animator, I am tricking you into believing things you see - lines, shapes, forms - are moving, thinking, feeling, living - and I'll use whatever I can to make you believe it. Music that makes you feel things and brain processing that links movement and sound before you notice it - both of these are part of that trickery.

The better I can do it the better my animation will be. I'll be able to grab you, my audience, and hold you through whatever roller-coaster ride I want take you on. As well as being able to look at my work and proclaim to the world, ---(dramatic chord)--- "It's ALIVE!!!!"


Studies of creativity are important and fascinating as well. Here's one from the March 29, 2008 Quirks and Quarks show.

Your Brain on Jazz - or should that be Your Brain Doing Jazz ? Dr. Charles Limb has found a unique pattern of brain activation during musical improvisation. This pattern is shared with dreaming, and (I speculate) is connected to other states of creativity and improvisation as well.

Here's the link to the mp3 file of the interview:
Your Brain on Jazz running time 9:30.