"The Eye is more superficial."

I've spent the weekend reading up and trying to understand last week's lecture on Sound. David said something that really made me look at movies (even the terribly cheesy ones done in bad taste!) in a different way:

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"The Eye is more superficial whereas the Ears are more uncertain. We can imagine what we hear."
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Wow! That's deep and profound David!

By my definition, David means:

"The Eye sees what you want to see (the more prominent visuals) but the Ears are more discerning (the less prominent sounds)."

I didn't think David could top that statement he made, but he floored me a few minutes later with this:

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"Cinema is ventriloquism."
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Have you found your inner Zen yet, David? Haha.

I struggled a little to define this statement. But i remembered the video that David showed - couple walking down a dark alley when a bunch of hoons (off camera) flashed their lights on them (which bounced back off the wall they're walking parallel with), jeered and drove away - and that helped me tremendously in my thought process.

Sound can be thrown at you from anywhere but it is up to the director to project it. In the scene above, many people would have shown the hoons driving past. I probably might have as well. David suggested using them out of shot as they're not essential to the plot development, but using the sounds and visuals they make to indicate their presence.

By doing that, the director cuts down on unnecessary shooting. Finding a bunch of hoons and a loud, souped up car in Melbourne is as easy as snapping your fingers, but they are - as in reel life - a waste of time.