Week 11

1. Genre of my work

My work is a action stinger done with stop motion animation. The animation features a physical action figure preform a fire bending move, with a backing audio track that carries that weight.

2. Exemplars and research

Exemplar 1: Avatar: The Last Airbender (Nickelodeon, 2005-2008) - Zuko and Score

Zuko story and many battles has a dedicated soundtrack by The Track Team (Jeremy Zukerman and Benjamin Wynn), including some cues such as "Agni Kai" and "Zuko's Scar" (Zukerman, 2023) The series went on to win a Peabody Award in 2008 (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). My Version uses a generic fight soundtrack, so the addition of a new soundtrack that sounds similar to those used in Avatar could add to the animations effect.

Exemplar 2: Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix, 2024) - Sound Design

In Netflix recent adaptation of the live action series, where Dallas Liu plays Zuko (Peralta, 2024), Tim Kimmel and Luke Gibleon (supvisioning sound editors) both received an Emmy nomination for sound editing (Post Magazine, 2024). Gibleon built the bending sounds from scratch before the visual were even finished, by layering audio tracks and using tools such as reverb (Peralta, 2024; Post Magazine, 2024). This meant that the visual were built around the sound of them. My own reverb for the fire impact is a small version of this, rather mine is only a single sound rather than layers.

3. Adding to Animation

Reopen exsiting project and imported new sounds Pasted image 20261007154542

Replaced fire ball sound effect with a new one to create a greater impact Pasted image 20261007154652

Replaced the vocals with a different sound and made it play at the same time as the fire ball. Pasted image 20261007154935

Replace the visuals with a different cut and then added more reverb and turned up the fire explosion sound. Pasted image 20261007155604

Result

For version 2 of the animation I redid the soundtrack, taking insirpation from my two exemplars. These two examples use Zuko fire ball attack as the centre piece of the impact. My version 1 used a single fire ball sound effect but didn't have the impact I wanted. So I found new fireball and shouting effects. Another change i made with these sounds is aligning them so they play at the same time. I believe this creates a greater effect of the fire ball. For the Fire ball sound I increased the sound level and the rebreb too, this created a greater impact.

4. Techniques, Media, Tools Used

Physical Media

Action Figure
Fire ball prop
Warm Light (desk lamp)

Video Tools

Adobe after effects
- sequencing
- assembling frames
- timing

Audio tools

premier pro
- sound effects assembly
- adding effects to sounds

References

Avatar Wiki. (2026). Getfandom. https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar_Wiki

Peralta, D. (2024, August 26). Interview: Tim Kimmel and Luke Gibleon on the magic behind the sound of ‘avatar: The last airbender’. Awards Radar. https://awardsradar.com/2024/08/26/tim-kimmel-and-luke-gibleon/

Post Magazine. (2024, August 14). Avatar: The last airbender’s co-supervising sound editors Tim Kimmel & Luke Gibleon - post magazine. Post Magazine. https://www.postmagazine.com/press-center/audio/2024/avatar-the-last-airbenders-co-supervising-sound-editors-tim-kimmel-luke-gibleon/

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, May 13). Jeremy Zuckerman. Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Zuckerman

Zuckerman, J. (2023). Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 1. Nickelodeon.

Sound Sources

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/film-special-effects-fire-magic-4-378637/ https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/people-male-fighter-voice-heavy-attack-grunt-544355/