I really like the use of sound in 'Ice Age' in general, because there are so many crisp and weather induced sounds, however, in particular, the use of sound towards Scrat's character, the squirrel who doesn't talk, is really interesting.
Because Scrat doesn't talk, this leaves room for an endless amount of possibilities in terms of how the audience can view him. For example, since he is a squirrel and moves quite fast, we can't really SEE how heavy or how much weight he carries, but due to the light taps of his feet indicated by the sound effects, imply that he is light on his feet or either doesn't weigh a lot. Either way, it adds to the enigma of how he can create such a mess, from earthquakes to avalanches, if he is such a delicate character. This adds to the exaggeration of his personality and his movements.
In addition, other than his eye movements, and speedy actions, we don't know much about his personality either, because he doesn't have the ability to talk. Yet the audience can hear his franticness in the breath, in his screams and in his utter panicked moments. Through this we can see that he is a nervous character, yet still goes back for more, so obviously never learns his lesson. He is always screaming at things coming his way, so we know he is a scaredy cat, which we wouldn't have noticed from his actions since he always seems to take the plunge, in which we could have just assumed he was brave.
Overall I think Scrat demonstrates how sound can be used effectively to morph a character into something completely different. If there were no sound effects to Scrat, we could have just assumed he was courageous and liked taking risks, but through his screaming and him voicing his fright, we can now see that he is quite the opposite. Also Scrat demonstrates how sound can be used to dictate how heavy or how light a character is, which I think is very clever.
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