How to work through it
Before review, list spoken lines, breaths, gestures, impacts, footsteps, machinery, ambience changes, music entries, and purposeful silence against approximate picture time. Identify which sounds must follow a visible source and which may remain atmospheric. Add pronunciation, voice authorization, music rights, language, and caption requirements so creative review does not overlook trust and delivery obligations.
Scrub through contact events and mouth movement, then listen without picture to detect unnatural edits, repeated textures, inconsistent space, or changing voice identity. Check distance, occlusion, room response, left-right movement, and whether cuts preserve the acoustic environment. Log the exact time range and failure type instead of describing the whole soundtrack as vaguely off.
Review on representative speakers and headphones, with captions and any platform loudness processing. Confirm that replacement dialogue, Foley, ambience, or music can be edited when needed. Record whether stems are available rather than assuming they are. A pass means the observed asset meets the declared delivery contract; it is not evidence that future generations will behave the same way.
