ABSTRACT
In many ways, sound in a film serves a similar purpose as sound in real life, and understanding the parallels can be very useful. This chapter looks at these parallels first from a broad sense, and then narrowing down to practical examples. As with many aspects of filmmaking, the degree to which you want the audience to consciously be aware of something varies greatly depending on the context. It is often said that you know you've mixed (or edited, colored, etc.) your film well when nobody notices it. Seamless execution is the goal. Outside the frame there is even more powerful opportunity due to the subliminal way in which it works. In the real world, through our ears, we naturally gather a ton of information about a space as soon as we walk into it even without trying.
