Embodied Metaphors in Film Sound: The Case of Aural Dynamics

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24140/ijfma.v10i2.9708

Abstract

This article explores the embodied meaning-making capacities of loudness or dynamics in film sound. Drawing on the research program of embodied cognition, we demonstrate how contemporary film sound practitioners use variations in loudness, silence and moments of dynamic contrast between the two, as a tool of metaphorical aural storytelling. We present and illustrate a classification of four strategies for manipulating dynamic range: (1) contrasting dynamic range, (2) relative loudness and silence, (3) spectral dynamics (frequency information and harmonic information) and (4) sound field. It is through these categories that we argue sound practitioners are able to communicate with listener-viewers because the meanings they flesh out in the sound design parallel the inherently embodied processes of human perception and cognition.

Author Biographies

  • Tarun Madupu, Lusófona University

    Tarun Madupu is a sound designer, composer and filmmaker from India. After graduating from Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music with a focus on audio engineering, he went on to get his Master’s degree from Kino Eyes - The European Movie Masters. He is currently preparing a PhD in sound design at Lusófona University.

  • Maarten Coëgnarts, University of Antwerp / LUCA School of Arts & University of the Free State

    Maarten Coëgnarts is Maarten Coëgnarts is assistant professor in film studies at the University of Antwerp, researcher in the arts at LUCA School of Arts and research fellow at the University of the Free State. He is co-author of Embodied Cognition and Cinema (Leuven University Press, 2015), author of Film as Embodied Art: Bodily Meaning in the Cinema of Stanley Kubrick (Academic Studies Press, 2019) and co-editor of Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind.

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Published

2025-12-29

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2025): Cinematic Minds Behind the Screens

Section

Full Papers