Work

Being There: Evocation of the Site in Contemporary Indian Cinema (18/07/2016)

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (co-author)
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About this publication

Contemporary Indian films, in their essentially digitalised realms, incorporate techniques such as the location-based multitrack “sync” recording, and surround sound design that reorder the organization of cinematic sound. These practices contrast with the earlier mono- or stereo formats by reconfiguring the linear construct of a soundtrack to produce a spatially evocative sonic environment that offers the listener a more life-like auditory experience of the fictional site. Using significant examples from post-2000 Indian films, this article shows how earlier practices are being replaced by “sync” sound elements and surround sound mixing with a richly spatial arrangement of site-specific ambience. The article argues that these layers of ambient sounds lead to audiences establishing their embodied experience of presence with the fictional site via auditory spatial cognition and immersion in a cinematic soundscape. By situating contemporary sound production practices within the various trajectories of Indian cinema, this article contributes to the broader field of research examining the key developments and emergent aesthetics in constructing spatial environments for cinema.
typepublication
keywordssound, sound studies, ambience, Indian cinema, soundscape, sound production, site-specificity, digital and personal technologies, sound art, film aesthetics, MediaArtHistories, Media Arts, film music, film sound
copyrightBudhaditya Chattopadhyay and the journal
year18/07/2016
publisherJournal of Sonic Studies
external linkhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/286592/286593