Monday, January 28, 2008

SOUND AWARDS NOMINEES

This is the first year in more than a decade that I do not feel completely qualified to analyze the awards nominees thoroughly. Normally I see about 60 films a year, most of the in the theater, and most of them during awards season, so I've seen almost all of the nominees. This year that didn't happen. A shift in the classes I teach put a lot more time into the end of the semester, so I was unable to see as many screenings as I normally would.

However, I'm going to do my best to analyze the Oscars, Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards, and Cinema Audio Society Awards. I'm involved directly with the latter two, as Past President of the MPSE and current Vice President of the CAS.

I'll start with the sound awards since that's what I do. I'll add a later post for other categories.


The nominees for the Oscar for Sound Editing:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (Universal)
Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Skip Lievsay

RATATOUILLE. (Walt Disney)
Randy Thom and Michael Silvers

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Matthew Wood

TRANSFORMERS (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro)
Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkin

All five films sounded quite good, but by far the best two were NO COUNTRY and RATATOUILLE. BOURNE and TRANSFORMERS were both big, loud action films, but I always feel it's more of a challenge to do the type of subtle work in NO COUNTRY. However, all Academy members vote on the final award, so it's likely something more obvious will win, and TRANSFORMERS had the most obvious use of sound.

The Golden Reel nominees for Sound Effects Editing in a Feature are similar:

3:10 TO YUMA
AMERICAN GANGSTER
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
I AM LEGEND
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END
SPIDER-MAN 3
TRANSFORMERS

RATATOUILLE is in a separate category, animation, along with these films:

BEE MOVIE
MEET THE ROBINSONS
PERSEPOLIS
RATATOUILLE
SHREK THE THIRD
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE
SURF’S UP
TEKKONKINKREET

RATATOUILLE has the best chance of winning. Anything else would be a major upset.


For the Oscar in Sound Mixing, the nominees are:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (Universal)
Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland

RATATOUILLE (Walt Disney)
Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane

3:10 TO YUMA (Lionsgate)
Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe

TRANSFORMERS (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro)
Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin


Kevin O'Connell has his 20th nomination, and might win for TRANSFORMERS. Personally I liked NO COUNTRY and RATATOUILLE.

The CAS nominees in the same category are again similar:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Production Mixer Kirk Francis, CAS
Re-recording Mixers Scott Millan, CAS, David Parker

INTO THE WILD
Production Mixer Edward Tise
Re-recording Mixers Michael Minkler, CAS, Lora Hirschberg

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Production Mixer Peter Kurland, CAS
Re-recording Mixers Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, CAS

300
Production Mixer Patrick Rousseau
Re-recording Mixers Chris Jenkins, CAS, Frank Montano

TRANSFORMERS
Production Mixer Peter J. Devlin, CAS
Re-recording Mixers Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell, CAS


Of these, I like NO COUNTRY, although there's again a good chance Kevin might win for TRANSFORMERS. I just can't bring myself to see 300.

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