Embodied Metaphors in Film Sound: The Case of Aural Dynamics

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.