Audio Components: Ambient Sound

Ambient sound is important in film making. Ambient sound is often referred to as background noise or atmospheric sound. It is the noise you would hear in the background of a scene/location. Ambient sound can be recorded on location or can be inserted during the editing process.

 Recording on location means that ambient sound can be recorded in the background of the mics used to record sound from an object or dialogue from an actor. However, doing this means the ambient noise can be interrupted by the noise of the focused person.

Another problem is that if a cut is made between shots that were from two different takes, the ambient sound may jump or change, which tends to be very noticeable.
To combat this and get the clearest ambient sound, the sound team will record the audio of the atmosphere around the location for a little longer than the scene is, so that it can be edited to the dialogue audio, and it seems continuous.

both of these are examples of ambient noise or background noise. These can be added to a scene as if they were the noise coming from the surroundings of the locations.