SOUND AWARDS

Last Saturday were the Cinema Audio Society Awards. The CAS award for Feature Sound Mixing went to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.
Production Mixer: Peter Kurland, CAS
Re-recording Mixers: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, CAS

This was what I predicted, and was my choice as well. I was on hand to present one of the Technical Achievement Awards, to Digidesign for their ICON controller surface.

Last night were the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards. The big winner in Television was BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, which sounded fantastic and won both the Dialogue/ADR Editing and Sound Effects/Foley Editing. I was also very happy to see my former student Becca Borawski win as Music Editor for the great musical episode of SCRUBS.

There were upsets in several feature categories at the MPSE.

In Music Editing for a Musical Feature, HAIRSPRAY upset the much higher profile SWEENEY TODD. In Music Editing for a Feature, INTO THE WILD beat several higher-profile films.

In Sound Editing on a Foreign Film, L'ORFANATO (THE ORPHANAGE) upset a number of other films with much bigger budgets. This one I am very happy to see, it was one of my favorite films of the year, and it had outstanding sound design.

And in the two big categories, Dialogue/ADR Editing and Sound Effects/Foley Editing, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM upset NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and several other big films.

Perhaps the only expected win in features was RATATOUILLE winning for animation.

I was on hand to present the Verna Fields Student Award to Cameron Grant of the AUSTRALIAN FILM, TELEVISION & RADIO SCHOOL for SHOT OPEN.

The award also comes with the Ethel Crutcher Scholarship, which was presented by Charlie Crutcher. Ethel was the backbone of the organization for several decades. She was the office manager when I was nominated as a student 20 years ago and her welcome to the evening really made me feel for the first time that sound editors were a respected part of the filmmaking community. It's because of her that I joined the MPSE, and because of her that joined the board of directors. Ethel gave the MPSE its firm start upon which we have been able to build over the years.