03.02.02
Your First Mix
Establish a deliberate hierarchy of sound.
- Sound Design
What the Instructor can readOne of these assignments is made and played on your own device; the Instructor reads the written review, not the recording. This lesson's feedback rubric is new and has not been reviewed by an instructor yet.
The Idea
Establish a deliberate hierarchy of sound.
A mix decides what the listener should attend to and how sounds coexist. Begin with the scene's priority: speech, a small action, a surrounding place or an intentional collision. Set a useful listening level and build around that priority. If every layer competes for attention, making everything louder will not solve the relationship.
Work first with basic levels, edits and fades. Listen for abrupt background changes, masked words and unwanted peaks. Check a quiet moment as carefully as a loud one. A meter helps identify technical conditions, but it does not tell you whether the scene communicates. Delivery loudness requirements depend on the destination; do not apply one platform's target as a universal artistic rule. Keep an unprocessed version so you can compare what your adjustments actually do.
Watch
Watching is optional. The worked example below is a complete route through the lesson on its own. These links identify the films — they are not a promise of free streaming, and the questions are FILMCRAFT's own.
Bicycle Thieves
Vittorio De Sica · 1948
Listen to how a voice sits within environmental sound.
PlayTime
Jacques Tati · 1967
Identify a moment when a small sound attracts attention. Consider what else is reduced or absent, while avoiding claims about the original mixing session.
Break It Down
Original scene: Rae reads a short line while placing a key on a table. Layers are voice, room ambience and key contact. If the contact masks the last word, options include lowering or retiming that effect, adjusting the voice, or changing the edit. Adding compression before identifying the conflict may complicate it. If the key is the dramatic priority, the line itself may be less important; state that choice before judging intelligibility.
- 01
Worked example
Original scene: Rae reads a short line while placing a key on a table. Layers are voice, room ambience and key contact. If the contact masks the last word, options include lowering or retiming that effect, adjusting the voice, or changing the edit. Adding compression before identifying the conflict may complicate it. If the key is the dramatic priority, the line itself may be less important; state that choice before judging intelligibility.
Frame Lab
Visual mission
Make a three-row priority chart: foreground, support, occasional accent. Place each sound in a row at a specific moment; priorities may change over the scene.
FILMCRAFT stores your observations and source links — never other people's images.
Try It
Try It
Mix a 15–25-second local clip with two layers using levels and fades only. Submit a 150–220-word listening log naming the priority and one masking or transition issue. Solo: record your voice and one household object safely.
Constraints
- Dialogue first, then everything else
Deliverable
your hierarchy plan (150–220 words)
Make It
Make It
Mix a 30–60-second local scene with no more than four layers. Compare the first and revised mix on headphones and a second available playback device, at comfortable levels. Submit a 250–350-word log describing changes, differences between devices and any unresolved limitation. If only one device is available, say so; do not invent a check.
Constraints
- One conflict at a time
- No loudness or clipping can be certified from text
Deliverable
your controlled adjustment (250–350 words)
AI Lab
Ask AI to prioritize the problems in your written listening log. It cannot set reliable levels or certify a mix it has not heard. Try one adjustment and compare at similar playback volume; louder can seem more impressive without being clearer. Keep generated or licensed asset provenance.
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Reflect
Go Deeper
Use the audio lessons in [Blackmagic Design's official training](https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/training) for tool operation. Check destination requirements when a real delivery destination is chosen.