You’re right, the shape of a room is the silent director of the whole show. A perfect rectangular room with a flat floor and walls is a poor actor – echoes bounce in hard, predictable ways and the soundfield becomes a hard‑to‑control maze. That’s why most theatres use a slight trapezoidal layout: the front of the audience is wider than the back so that the listening angles stay within a sweet spot and the rear walls act like a soft diffuser, not a mirror. Screen placement is its own puzzle. Put the screen too far back and the image becomes too small for the front row; too close and the rear audience sees a wide‑angle distortion. The ideal spot is roughly 1.5–1.8 times the height of the screen behind the audience, adjusted for the actual viewing angle you want (typically 30–40 degrees). And don’t forget the height – if the screen is too low, the front rows have to crane their necks, and if it’s too high, the back rows feel like they’re watching a sky‑screen. Acoustics demand a bit of micromanagement: absorptive panels on the ceiling to dampen early reflections, bass traps at the corners to hold down those 30‑Hz peaks, and a carefully angled speaker array so the sound field follows the geometry of the room rather than the geometry of the speakers. It’s a lot of detail, but when you nail it, the room actually feels like an extension of the screen rather than an obstacle.