Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504731
56 M PS E . O R G image schema are age (young to old), height (low to high), or speed (slow to fast); analogously, examples of musical parameters that share a LINEARITY image schema are loudness (soft to loud), pitch frequency (low to high), or tempo (slow to fast)." According to Chattah, we use conceptual metaphors to establish structural congruence in film soundtracks. Some of the most common conceptual metaphors we use in films are TEMPO IS SPEED OF PHYSICAL MOVEMENT (see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) at [1:34:10], and PITCH FREQUENCY IS MOTION IN VERTICAL SPACE (see Wile E. Coyote vs. Gravity in the videography). Chattah also argues that we use conceptual metaphors to establish semantic congruence in films; "Extensive research has shown that muscle groups responsible for heartbeat and breathing would synchronize to a dominant sound; as a result, the soundtrack may subliminally increase a feeling of tension in the audience by increasing the tempo of a simulated heart rate. Midnight Express (1978) and more recently, Gravity (2013), illustrate this sound-design technique." (Chattah, 2015). The conceptual metaphors he proposes are PSYCHOLOGICAL TENSION IS LOUDNESS, PSYCHOLOGICAL TENSION IS CONSONANCE/ DISSONANCE, PSYCHOLOGICAL TENSION IS PITCH FREQUENCY, PSYCHOLOGICAL TENSION IS LOUDNESS and PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE IS TIMBRE. Let's look at two really good examples of PSYCHOLOGICAL TENSION IS LOUDNESS and PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE IS TIMBRE conceptual metaphors. In PSYCHOLOGICAL TENSION IS LOUDNESS, Chattah explains that "soft sounds belong to a relaxed state and loud sounds correspond to a tense state." He also states that "film composers often draw on the notion of consonance and dissonance to portrait relative degrees of psychological tension (or relaxation)." (Chattah, 2015). A great example of this occurs in The Godfather (1972) at [1:23:10]. This is a very interesting sequence in terms of sound design by Walter Murch. Chattah (2015) analyses this scene from the perspective of his field, music. In the following paragraphs, I analyse the same scene but from my own perspective as a sound designer. At [1:23:10], Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is a passenger in Sollozzo's car where he's being taken for a meet-up. Train tracks are heard offscreen and extradiegetically in a very subtle way. While there could be train tracks below the bridge they're crossing, or in the vicinity, they are played overtly loud and their spatial location in the mix don't obey the picture cuts. This establishes early on that the use of sound for this sequence will be crossing the line between the subjective and the objective, rendering both the real and the surreal. Train tracks are heard offscreen but relatively loud when we cut to the front door of "Louis" the Italian restaurant where Michael Corleone is about to sit down "in good faith" with two members of an opposing gang. As we cut to Sollozzo's face in the interior of the restaurant, the train can still be heard passing, overtly loud in the mix. After they order food, and they start to converse, the train recedes and offscreen sounds in general go down to normal levels. When Michael goes to the bathroom to grab the hidden gun, the offscreen train sound is heard very loud again as if representing the psychological tension in Michael's head as he weighs in his head what's about to happen. This is it, he's going to kill those two men. As he sits down, Sollozzo starts to talk about Michael's father as the camera gets closer to his face, showing us he's visibly tense and uncomfortable. Frame from The Conversation (1974). PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE IS TIMBRE conceptual metaphor at play.