The monstrous complexity of sound editing work - the quest to make films sound the way the world sounds - may not be immediately apparent. After a movie has been filmed, it enters the labyrinthine world of postproduction, in which the best takes are selected and spliced together into roughly 20-minute segments of film. These are worked on and then stitched together at the end of post-production.

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The distinction between these processes is subtle: the first two have more to do with the creation and selection of the sounds that make up each scene, and the development of a cohesive aural aesthetic for a movie. The third involves taking sounds created by the designers and editors and integrating them in each scene so that everything comes across as 'natural'.

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First, editors remove the audio recordings taken during filming and break down each scene into distinct sonic elements, namely dialogue, effects, music and Foley. "Foley' is the term used for everyday sounds such as squeaky shoes or cutlery jangling in a drawer.

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Consider a classic movie scene in which something Important has just happened, for example a villain has just pulled up in his car. There are a few momenis of what might be mistaken for stillness. Nothing moves - but the soundscape is deceptively layeredi There might be a mostly unnoticeable rustle of leaves in the trees periodically, so faint that almost no one would register it consciously. Or the sound of a vehicle rolling through an intersection a block or two over, off camera, a dog barks somewhere far away.

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All this requires a very particular and somewhat strange set of talents and fascinations. You need the ability not only to hear with an almost superhuman ear, but also the technical proficiency and saint-like patience to spend hours getting the sound of a kettle's hiss exactly the right length as well as the right pitch - and not only the right pitch but the right pitch considering that the camera moves across the scene during the shot.

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This is why there is something very slightly unnerving about spending time around people whose powers of perception suggest the existence of an entirely different layer of reality that you are missing. The way they work requires an entirely different - and, in some senses, unnatural - way of experiencing sound. The process reflects the fact that each sound is important enough to deserve its own consideration, so each gets edited separately before being put all together and checked for coherence.

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Consequently, the vast majority of people walk around not hearing most of what there is to hear. Not so, for most sound editors. It can be mildly excruciating to listen this hard, to hear so much, which is why some of the team wear earplugs when they walk around the city.

A Each of these components needs to be built and then edited separately for every scene before being assigned its own dedicated editor. Then, the top guys take the team's work and layer it to make scenes that sound like the real world sounds.

B The gesture had the studious flourish which a minor orchestral instrumentalist - say, the triangle player - might devote to his one entrance. But instead of being the work of the actor, likely as not, that was a moustachioed man standing in his socks in a warehouse somewhere.

C This is radically unlike the way the human brain is designed to hear. We are predisposed to heed the rhythms and pitch of people talking and noises that might indicate threat. Other sounds - like 'white noise' - are depressed so that the brain fires fewer responses and we automatically 'tune out'. This is how the brain converts sound into information.

D The viewer's ear will subconsciously anticipate hearing a maddeningly subtle, but critical, Doppler effect, which means that the tone it makes as it boils needs to shift downward at precisely the interval that a real one would if you happened to walk by at that speed.

E Each part goes through picture editing (for such things as visual continuity or colour) before being handed over to the sound supervisor, who oversees all the various elements of sound design, sound editing, and mixing.

F When the thud of his boot heel finally connects with the asphalt, his breathing is laboured, even the pads of his fingers creak as they make contact with the collar of his leather jacket as he straightens. None of these are there because some microphone picked them up. They're there because someone chose them and put then there, like every other sound in the film.

G In other words, it is important to make sure the sound of a butterfly landing on the hood of a car isn't louder than a car backfiring. Only a few people have an ear for these types of work.