Animation Journal, Volume 22, 2014 68 THE MUSICAL SCRIPT: NORMAN MCLAREN, ANIMATED SOUND, AND AUDIOVISUALITY by Holly Rogers Twentieth-century experimentation in ilm, animation, music, and art has been marked by intermedial and transmedial play between various art forms. Particularly alluring, to both creators and audiences alike, has been the combination of music and image, a fusion supported by a long history of audiovisual experimentation. The latter runs from the synaesthetic work of Telemann, Rimsky- Korsakov, Scriabin, Klee, and Klimt to the collaborations of Schoenberg and Kandinsky, and also can be found in the color organ spectacles of the late nineteenth century. In ilm, the ability to synchronize or synthesize sound and image as closely as possible has been something of a holy grail, one that, technologically speaking at least, has become easier to achieve with every passing decade. The early piano accompaniments, cue sheets, and roto scores for silent, or mute, ilm have today been superseded by the concurrent creation of audio and visual elements with digital media. Throughout cinema history, the idea of synchronization has been treated differently within various schools, with issues such as commercialization, distribution, politics, ideology, realism, and the viewing strategies of an audience often distinguishing various styles of experimental ilm from that of mainstream practice. Recently, and in light of newly emerging forms of screen media, a cacophony of inluences has surged into the aesthetic and stylistic threads that stretch between mainstream and experimental modes of ilmmaking practice. This creative and eclectic energy has blurred boundaries and problematized categorization. With the channels of communication opened wide, traditional distinctions of ideology, narratology, and aesthetic form that have clearly separated mainstream cinema from live-action and animated avant-gardes have become increasingly dificult to identify. If we consider the evolving relationship between mainstream and avant-garde cinematic practices in terms of music—or, more precisely, the connection between music and image, and the overarching audiovisual patterns that linkage creates—the luctuating low of information is thrown into relief. Since its earliest days, iction ilm has been awash with music. It has often been theorized that the predominant role of ilm music (and indeed, that of synchronous sound more generally) is to lessen viewers’ awareness of the technological construct that unfolds before their eyes, and thus to encourage them to believe, on some temporary level, that what they are watching is real. In addition, well-placed music can draw out a narrative, highlight aesthetic and thematic