When the Ear Dreams: Dolby Digital and the Imagination of Sound

Abstract Nine Dolby theatrical “trailers” were made from the mid-1990s to 2003 specifically to visualize and promote the audio capabilities of digital sound. Drawing on Bachelard's The Poetics of Space and Chion's Audio-Vision, this essay explores the trailers' sound-driven imagery and suggests its implications for contemporary “mainstream” narrative cinema.