Although studies have elucidated the meaning-making mechanisms of animated embodiment within film study paradigms, its medium-specificity compared to live-action imagery remains insufficiently examined. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from film phenomenology, cognitive semantics and cognitive neuroscience, this study employs the methodology of constitutive interpretation to explore how animation enhances the mechanisms of sense-making in Greatness Code (Chopra, 2020), the sports documentary series that represents the embodied memories of seven elite athletes during pivotal moments in their performances through the juxtaposition and superimposition of animated and live-action images. Ultimately, the authors argue that this documentary utilizes several embodied mechanisms, including ‘haptic palimpsest’, ‘elaborate and expanded embodied depiction’, and ‘associative objective mapping’. In these mechanisms, animation demonstrates the following medium-specificity: (1) generation of digital materiality; (2) elaborate tracing abilities and expandability in sensory representation; and (3) constructedness of sensory associations. These qualities transcend the boundaries of sensory expression in Greatness Code’s live-action footage and facilitate the public articulation of hidden embodied knowledge in sports competitions. Crucially, these medium specificities remain significant when juxtaposed with other professional techniques conceptualized in extant research on live-action embodiment, thereby contributing to the expansion of studies of animated embodiment. Meanwhile, this study elucidates the attribute and potential of embodied animation in mediating memory within non-fiction contexts.
ArzyS, et al. (2006). Neural mechanisms of embodiment. Archives of Neurology63(7): 1022–1025.
2.
BarkerJM (2009) The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience. University of California Press.
3.
BartlettFC (1932) Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan.
4.
BergenB (2019) Embodiment. In: DąbrowskaEDivjakD (eds) Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations of Language. Walter de Gruyter, pp.11–35.
5.
BissonnetteS (2019) Affect and Embodied Meaning in Animation: Becoming-Animated. Routledge.
6.
BouldinJR (2004) The animated and the actual: Toward a theory of animation, live-action, and everyday life. PhD thesis, University of California, Irvine.
7.
BouldinJR (2000) Bodacious bodies and the voluptuous gaze: A phenomenology of animation spectatorship. Animation Journal8(2): 56–67.
BrunoG (2014) Surface. University of Chicago Press.
10.
BudachGSharoyanG (2020) Exploring ‘vibrant matter’ in animation making. Language and Intercultural Communication20(5): 464–481.
11.
ChenMHuRJ (2025) The host in the shell: Constructing female identity in the embodied animated media. New Media & Society27(6): 3429–3448.
12.
ChoiC (2025) (Re)animating ‘comfort women’ memories: Fantastical abstractions and metaphorical violence. Howard Journal of Communications36(1): 77–90.
13.
CholodenkoA (1991) The Illusion of Life. University of Sydney, Power Publications in Association with the Australian Film Commission.
14.
ChopraG (2020) Greatness Code. Short-form Sports Documentary Television Series. Apple TV+.
15.
Chow Ka-ninK (2009) The spiritual—functional loop: Animation redefined in the digital age. animation: an interdisciplinary journal4(1): 77–89.
16.
ChowKKN (2021) Crafting animated parables: An embodied approach to representing lifestyle behaviours for reflection. Digital Creativity32(1): 1–21.
17.
CoëgnaertsMKravanjaP (2012) The visual and multimodal representation of time in film, or: How time is metaphorically shaped in space. Image and Narrative Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative13(3): 85–100.
18.
ColomaRSMeansAKimA (2009) Palimpsest histories and catachestic interventions. In: Sintos ColomaR (ed.) Postcolonial Challenges in Education. Peter Lang, pp.3–22.
19.
D’AloiaA (2015) The character’s body and the viewer: Cinematic empathy and embodied simulation in the film experience. In: CoëgnartsMKravanjaP (eds) Embodied Cognition and Cinema. Leuven University Press, p.187.
20.
DenisonA (2023) New medium specificities: Toward a politics and a poetics of digital cinema. PhD thesis, University of Iowa.
21.
EhrlichN (2019) Conflicting realisms: Animated documentaries in the post-truth era. Studies in Documentary Film15(1): 20–40.
22.
EhrlichN (2020) The animated document: Animation’s dual indexicality in mixed realities. animation: an interdisciplinary journal15(3): 260–275.
23.
EhrlichN (2021) Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century. Edinburgh University Press.
24.
EzraEWheatleyC (2023) Introduction to special issue: Film objects. Film-Philosophy27(1): 1–6.
25.
FahlenbrachK (2007) Embodied spaces: Film spaces as (leading) audiovisual metaphors. In: Fisher AndersonBAndersonJD (eds) Narration and Spectatorship in Moving Images. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.105–124.
26.
FahlenbrachK (2016) Audiovisual metaphors as embodied narratives in moving images. In: FahlenbrachK (ed.) Embodied Metaphors in Film, Television, and Video Games. Routledge, pp.33–50.
27.
FinchC (2013) The CG Story: Computer-Generated Animation and Special Effects. The Monacelli Press.
28.
FolmanA (2008) Waltz with Bashir (film). Sony Pictures Classics.
29.
ForcevilleC (2006) The source-path-goal schema in the autobiographical journey documentary: McElwee, Van der Keuken, Cole. The New Review of Film and Television Studies4: 241–261.
30.
ForcevilleC (2013) Metaphor and symbol: Searching for one’s identity is looking for a home in animation film. Review of Cognitive Linguistics11(2): 250–268.
31.
ForcevilleC (2017) From image schema to metaphor in discourse: The force schemas in animation films. In: HampeB (ed.) Metaphor: Embodied Cognition and Discourse. Cambridge University Press, pp.239–256.
32.
ForcevilleCJeulinkM (2011) The flesh and blood of embodied understanding: The Source-Path-Goal schema in animation film. Pragmatics and Cognition19(1): 37–59.
33.
ForcevilleCPalingS (2018) The metaphorical representation of depression in short, wordless animation films. Visual Communication20(1): 100–120.
34.
FreedbergDGalleseV (2007) Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences11(5): 197–203.
35.
GainesMJ (2021) Sporting blackness: Race, embodiment, and critical muscle memory on screen by Samantha N. Sheppard. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies61(1): 199–202.
36.
GallagherS (2010) Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. Topoi29(2): 183–185.
37.
GalleseV (2003) The manifold nature of interpersonal relations: The quest for a common mechanism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences358: 517–528.
38.
GalleseV (2005) Embodied simulation: From neurons to phenomenal experience. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences4: 23–48.
39.
GalleseV (2020) The aesthetic world in the digital era. A call to arms for experimental aesthetics. Reti, Saperi, Linguaggi7(1): 55–84.
40.
GalleseVGuerraM (2012) Embodying movies: Embodied simulation and film studies. Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image3: 183–210.
41.
GalleseVSinigagliaC (2011) What is so special with embodied simulation?Trends in Cognitive Sciences15(11): 512–519.
42.
GibbsRWJr (2006) Embodiment and Cognitive Science. Cambridge University Press.
43.
GormanRFarsidesBGammidgeT (2023) Stop-motion storytelling: Exploring methods for animating the worlds of rare genetic disease. Qualitative Research23(6): 1737–1758.
44.
Guillamón-CarrascoS (2020) Haptic visuality and film narration. Mapping new women’s cinema in Spain. Communication and Society33(3): 137–147.
45.
GuzmanEHHongE (2022) Feminist sensory ethnography: embodied filmmaking as a politic of necessity. Visual Anthropology Review38(2): 184–210.
46.
HansonMR (1993) The phenomenology of perception: An explication of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s major work. Honors Thesis, 1963–2015, p.345. Available at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/honors_theses/345 (accessed 15 May 2024).
47.
HattlerM (2021) The abstracted real: Speculations on experimental animated documentary. International Journal of Film and Media Arts6(3): 37–54.
48.
HolmaasL (2023) Implausible possibility: Freedom and realism in live-action/animated gag comedies. animation: an interdisciplinary journal18(2): 102–116.
49.
Honess RoeA (2011) Absence, excess and epistemological expansion: Towards a framework for the study of animated documentary. animation: an interdisciplinary journal6(3): 215–230.
Honess RoeA (2017) Interjections and connections: The critical potential of animated segments in live-action documentary. animation: an interdisciplinary journal12(3): 272–286.
52.
Honess RoeA (2019) Animation and performance. In: DobsonN, et al. (eds) The Animation Studies Reader. Bloomsbury, pp.69–79.
53.
HusbandsL (2018) Fantastical empathy: Encountering abstraction in Bret Battey’s Sinus Aestum (2009). In: HollidayCSergeantA (eds) Fantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums and Genres. Routledge, pp.73–90.
54.
KappelhoffHMüllerC (2011) Embodied meaning construction: Multimodal metaphor and expressive movement in speech, gesture, and feature film. Metaphor and the Social World1(2): 121–153.
55.
KeysersCGazzolaV (2009) Expanding the mirror: Vicarious activity for actions, emotions, and sensations. Current Opinion in Neurobiology19(6): 666–671.
56.
LakoffG (1987) Woman, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago University Press.
57.
LakoffG (1990) The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image-schemas?Cognitive Linguistics1(1): 39–74.
58.
LakoffGJohnsonM (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books.
59.
LakoffGJohnsonM (2003) Metaphors We Live by. University of Chicago Press.
60.
LamarreT (2014) Coming to life: Cartoon animals and natural philosophy. In: RedrobeK (ed.) Animating Film Theory. Duke University Press.
MillerSDavisGBowenSL (2021) A musico-choreographic analysis of a Cuban dance routine: A performance-informed approach. Ethnomusicology Forum31(1): 160–182.
72.
MolenberghsPCunningtonRMattingleyJB (2012) Brain regions with mirror properties: A meta-analysis of 125 human fMRI studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews36(1): 341–349.
73.
Muniz GordeeffE (2023) Review of animation and live-action cinema: Similarities and differences. Dialogo com a Economia Criativa8(24): 50.
74.
NicholsB (1991) Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Indiana University Press.
75.
NoraPKritzmanLD (ed.) (1996) Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Vol. 3. Columbia University Press.
76.
OstarekMHuettigF (2019) Six challenges for embodiment research. Current Directions in Psychological Science28(6): 593–599.
77.
PizzoA (2016) Actors and acting in motion picture capture. Acting Archives Review11: 38–69.
78.
PowerP (2008) Character animation and the embodied mind—brain. animation: an interdisciplinary journal3(1): 25–48.
79.
RamachandranVSHubbardEM (2001) Synaesthesia—a window into perception, thought and language. Journal of Consciousness Studies8(12): 3–34.
80.
RathiP, et al. (2024) Unmasking deepfakes: Understanding the technology, risks, and countermeasures. In:4th International Conference on Innovative Practices in Technology and Management (ICIPTM), Noida, India, 21–23 February, 1–6.
81.
Rocha SouzaEC (2012) Beyond materiality in animation: Sensuous perception and touch in the tactile existence of ‘Would a Heart Die?’ Research Papers, Paper 285. Available at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/gs_rp/285 (accessed 15 May 2024).
82.
RoseG (2022) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. Sage.
83.
RozenkrantzJ (2016) Short subject: Expanded epistemologies: Animation meets live-action in contemporary Swedish documentary film. Journal of Scandinavian Cinema6(2): 189–197.
84.
RyburnM (2024) Animating migration journeys from Colombia to Chile: Expressing embodied experience through co-produced film. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies50(13): 3300–3318.
85.
SayyadASotoudehMSotoudehS (2020) The capacities of haptic perception in Persian–Islamic art and its function in cinematic expression the case of The Green Fire?The Monthly Scientific Journal of Bagh-e Nazar17(88): 19–26.
86.
ScheuermannM (2019) Animated memories: A case study of the animated documentary Saydnaya – Inside a Syrian Torture Prison (2016) and its potential within social memory. Masters Thesis, Stockholm University, Sweden.
87.
SchlusselHFroshP (2023) The taste of video: Facebook videos as multi-sensory experiences. Convergence29(4): 980–996.
88.
ShapiroBRSilvisD (2025) Animated movements, animating methods: An interaction geography approach to space and affect in early childhood education. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy25(3): 901–932.
89.
ShapleyG (2011) After the artefact: Post-digital photography in our post-media era. Journal of Visual Art Practice10(1): 5–20.
90.
SluganMTerroneE (2021) The fiction/nonfiction distinction: Documentary studies and analytic aesthetics in conversation. Studies in Documentary Film15(2): 107–113.
91.
SmithJEH (2017) Embodiment: A History. Oxford University Press.
92.
SobchackV (1992) The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience. Princeton University Press.
93.
SobchackV (2004) Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Univ of California Press.
94.
SpiegelbergH (2013) Phenomenological Movement. Springer Science and Business Media.
95.
ThonJN (2019) Post/documentary: Referential multimodality in ‘Animated Documentaries’ and ‘Documentary Games’. Poetics Today40(2): 269–297.
96.
TorreD (2014) Cognitive animation theory: A process-based reading of animation and human cognition. animation: an interdisciplinary journal9(1): 47–64.
97.
TorreD (2017) Animation? Process, Cognition and Actuality. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
98.
TuanL (2022) The matter of manual traces: Letters, photographs and bean paste in Naomi Kawase’s cinema of touch. Film-Philosophy26(3): 285–307.
99.
Van GageldonkMMunteánLShobeiriA (eds) (2020) Animation and Memory. Palgrave Macmillan.
100.
WangK, et al. (2025) Where is the boundary? Understanding how people recognize and evaluate generative AI-extended videos. In: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Yokohama, Japan, 30 September 2024–12 January 2025.
101.
WellsP (2002) Animation: Genre and Authorship. Wallflower Press.
102.
WellsPHardstaffJ (2008) Re-imagining Animation: The Changing Face of the Moving Image. Ava Publishing.
103.
WilliamsGH (2021) Labour’s mediating objects: Tools, tactility, and embodiment. In: GrundmannR, et al. (eds) Labour in a Single Shot. Amsterdam University Press, p.305.
104.
WoodA (2006) Re-animating space. animation: an interdisciplinary journal1(2): 133–152.
