The movie revolves around heroes with super powers. They are called “Supers”. Once, they were seen as heroes and beloved by citizens, but due to several unfortunate deeds, they were told to fit in with the rest of the public and not to use their super powers anymore.

The central characters are father Bob, his wife Helen and their children Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack, all of them are supers. Bob has a boring job in an insurance company, so when he gets a message from a mysterious woman named Mirage, to stop a raging robot on a distant island, he doesn’t hesitate even one second and takes that job. However, the robot is controlled by an evil villain called Syndrome – lovelorn man, who once used to be Bob’s huge fan.

Meanwhile, Helen realizes, that her husband Bob is in danger and, together with her kids Violet and Dash, goes to rescue him. After they land on the island, Helen tells her kids, that if anything goes wrong, they are free to use their superpowers.

One of the key scenes in this movie is right when Helen and her kids separate. The kids are waiting in a cave, but suddenly there is a huge fire coming towards them and they have to leave immediately.

They found themselves in a jungle, soon discovered by an alarm system and in a moment, chased by Velocipods.

Randy Thom, sound designer of the movie, knew, that in order to make the chasing scene work, the Velocipods had to sound dangerous.

“The scene doesn’t work unless we think that those things are about to chew them up and spit them out any second.” [Randy Thom]

Nobody knows, how the Velocipod sounds like, but at least, there were some visual clues to that. They look like flying sources, with knives spinning around them – they fly, they are fast and they are life-threatening.

What Randy Thom did was that he thought initially about sounds, that evoke all of those above mentioned characteristics. Consequently, he came up with sounds of F1 racing cars, jet-bys, knives being sharpened and sharp pieces of metal rubbing against each other. All combined together in such a way, that on emotional level, the audience can feel the danger represented by the Velocipods.

Randy Thom is truly a great sound designer, he is focused on using sound as a storytelling device and he is willing to share his insight and knowledge.

If you want to read more about sound design in “The Incredibles”, I recommend you to read these two interviews with Randy Thom:

• Randy Thom – The year of living animatedly
• With an ear for storytelling, Randy Thom makes audiences believe what they hear

And if you want to learn more about Randy Thom, read the “Behind the Art” interview at designingsound.org and his articles at filmsound.org, these are golden!