Wheel of Time

Take a New York Times best-selling author, two guys with interests in music and animation, and copies of ACID, Sound Forge, and Vegas, and what do you get? Incredible independent filmmaking. When you read stories about how digital technology is changing entertainment, this is the stuff they're writing about.

Inspired by Robert Jordan's series of the same name, the "Wheel of Time†" animated short is the work of Dan Parsons, Composer, Arranger, and Sound Designer, and Alex Lawrence, 3D Modeler and Animator. Dan has been composing for multimedia studios, independent film makers, and various other contracts since 1997. Some of his credits include the score for "El Maya," a feature-length independent film; Comdex tradeshow music for AMD's K6-3D chip; "Beyond Eden," a studio film, and more. Alex is currently a student at Texas A&M University studying computer science. Alex's credits include developing a multi-media yearbook for his high school, and numerous digital spoofs of commercials.

Dan met Alex in 1998 when Alex started taking music composition lessons from him. Their partnership grew from there. While they haven't formed a business partnership yet, they intend to make Lawrence/Parsons Productions a viable enterprise in the near future. And, judging from the quality of their work to date, that future won't be far off.

The "Wheel of Time" short is slated to be complete by late Summer 2001. Dan and Alex plan to shop it around then. They'll start with digital distributors such as ifilm.com and atomfilms.com, but also plan to take the film offline to digital and other film festivals.

Coming from an analog background, digital technology was something new to Dan. But after trying Sony Creative Software products, Dan hasn't turned back. Dan uses Sound Forge, ACID, and Vegas to score their animations; Sound Forge for capturing audio, editing, cleaning, sweetening, and creating loops for ACID; ACID for composing and arranging; and Vegas for mixing and synchronizing audio to video.

Dan especially likes the way the products work together. "I like the fact that between the three programs I use," Dan writes, "Forge, ACID, and Vegas, I can complete a composing, arranging, and/or sound design project from start to finish."

Here's the story on how Sony Creative Software products helped Dan and Alex make the "Wheel of Time:"

"I created and edited all the sound effects for the trailer using Sound Forge," writes Dan. "This included getting rid of noise and sweetening some of the effects as necessary. For the music – this is the interesting part.

I used to be a sequencer and used my synthesizer only. After I discovered ACID, I realized that if I created loops of the "building block tracks" of my compositions I wouldn't be stuck with having to lug my board with me when I needed to create something…I could just burn a disk of my loops. So that is what I did for this project.

The music for the trailer was actually composed and recorded about eight months before the trailer was finished. I composed most of the music (string beds, ambient sounds) on my synthesizer and then created loops from all the tracks using Sound Forge (some of the loops used in the trailer were actually free loops from www.sonycreativesoftware.com or the 8-Packs from ACIDPlanet.com).

When the scenes were finally cut for the trailer, it only took me a day and a half to sync all the music and effects to the video. I absolutely could not have done this without Vegas. When I use Vegas to sync audio to video I like to divide my audio into three sections: voice, music, and sfx/foley. Though I end up using many more than three tracks for the audio, it helps to work this way so I can balance the most important part at any given time. My favorite feature of Vegas is the envelop feature…this feature is crucial to balancing/fading and adding right/left realism in a stereo mix."

When finished, Dan and Alex expect the full "Wheels of Time" short to run eight to ten minutes long. Next on their schedule: a 3D animation based on the events and characters surrounding the writing of the "Star-Spangled Banner."

Check back often for updates on the "Wheels of Time," and Dan and Alex's adventures as they market the film.

† The phrase "Wheel of Time™," as well as all characters, associated elements, logos, and other licensed works based upon it are trademarks of Robert Jordan. This animated trailer is in no way officially associated with or representative of the "Wheel of Time," and no claim of ownership nor reassignment of Robert Jordan's or Tor's copyright and copyright material to any other parties Is intended or inferred by the creators of this animation.

UPDATE: The Wheel of Time animation has been put on hold indefinitely. However, Dan continues to use Sony Creative Software applications in all his productions. Check out his portfolio at www.nolongerifilms.com.