Let’s Write a Cue! That’s a Wrap!

A full house of enthusiastic ‘students’ attended ASMAC’s Saturday Master Class “Let’s Write a Cue!: Traditional Animation.” The presenter was Charles Fernandez — Emmy and Annie nominated composer/orchestrator/conductor and bassoonist who has worked on countless series, films, and trailers including Universal’s Casper Cartoon Series; Disney’s Little Mermaid; Disney’s Aladdin; Disney’s Doug; Disney’s 101 Dalmatians; Dreamworks’ Toonsylvania, Disney’s Bonkers, Cartoon Networks’ Robot Chicken as well as films such as Doug’s 1st Movie; All Dogs II, Pebble and the Penguin among many others.

The three hour presentation, went through the process of composing a cue for animation from start to finish. The attentive audience paid a lot of attention as Fernandez started with the different levels of animation composition, and then, with the help of numerous video clips and score sheets on screen, he covered everything from the instrumentation and musical concept, through timings, laying out the score, dealing with dialogue and more. He enhanced the class with stories about what worked and what didn’t plus challenges he had encountered as he worked on projects with various studios. He generously answered many questions from both the novice and the experienced composers attending, and left them wanting more.

The Master Class was held at the Rancho Cordillera del Norte’s NEW MISSION THEATER in Northridge, thanks to Elizabeth Waldo. It was one in a series of classes presented 5-8 times a year by ASMAC. For more information on this, or future events, please visit http://www.asmac.org.