Oscar Nods: Sound Categories

Getting past the headlines of Oscar nominations, I'd like to turn focus upon the categories I feel are more interesting and (more importantly) less influenced by the millions spent on 'consideration' campaigns: Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

When I looked at the Editing and Mixing lists, I felt like each film deserved to be on it, but what I didn't expect was to personally know so many of the nominees. I guess the more I work in this business, the more I acquaint myself and work with some super-stud sound people. Some of them have been my sound heroes for a long time, and some I can truthfully call friends.

Sound Editing

The Dark Knight
Richard King

I don't know him, and I haven't worked with him... yet. For lack of a better pun, he's pretty much the "King" of sound in LA.

This movie has a front-runner presence on this list. I went to a sound-show a couple months ago highlighting the sound editing and music editing for this film. Very impressive.

Iron Man
Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes

I know these guys through my times working up north at Skywalker Sound. Ironically (notice the use of the word "iron" there), both Frank and Chris were in talks to sound supervise "Hoodwinked" before Tom Myers came on. This is Frank's 1st nomination, and Chris's 11th. Chris has won 4 times, and he's a motorcycle rider, so I have to give him a good chance here.

Slumdog Millionaire
Glenn Freemantle and Tom Sayers

Don't know these guys, but they are riding an excellent wave of goodwill the academy feels towards this film. They could surprise us with a darkhorse victory.

Wall-E
Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood

Both friends through Skywalker. Ben is the most influential sound designer of the age, being the creator of all of the Star Wars sound effects including R2-D2, lightsabers, you name it. I could write a 900 page blog about him and still not cover his accomplishments or his love for the study of film sound.

He's still at it and with his latest feat, Wall-E. He not only sound designed it, but he also created the voice for the lead character. His and Matt's attention to detail here are unprecedented, especially considering the movie being largely sound effects laden. I give Wall-E a huge chance in this category.

Wanted
Wylie Stateman

I haven't seen it, but it reviewed well, and pretty much anything Wylie does, gets the Academy's attention. I don't expect it to beat out The Dark Knight, or Wall-E, but you never know.

Sound Mixing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten

I only know Michael from waiting in line for lunch at Skywalker, but he's an excellent mixer with a ginormous resume. Whatever he works on sounds awesome. Oscar certainly loves Benjamin Button, so this one could ride that wave.

The Dark Knight
Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick

Gary has become a good friend of mine since he was a mixer on "Hoodwinked". He and Lora also mixed "Batman Begins". I have high expectations that this will be a front-runner in this category as well. As much as I like the sound editing on this picture, I like the mixing more.

Slumdog Millionaire
Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty

Again, the academy loves darkhorse nominees sometimes, and in this category, this qualifies. Anything can happen. Plus, with a name like Pookutty, how can you go wrong?

Wall-E
Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt

Tom was sound supervisor and another mixer on "Hoodwinked", and through the experience of working with him, he became a good friend to me, bestowing all sorts of great advice and encouragement. His work has been overlooked too many times by the academy, and I'm so happy for him. He rounds out an amazing team including Ben and Michael. This is my other front-runner choice in this category. (BTW - Tom is a madman on the racquetball court. Take him on at your own peril.)

Wanted
Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

I don't see this film competing against the favorites here, but again, there are no locks!

This year's categories are chock-full of amazing work. It will be interesting. What's your take? Who will emerge as the winners?

Star Wars, Now In Mandarin

I printmastered my first foreign version of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" mix today. It was a lightning fast mix; only three days! Star Wars is cool in Swedish though. The Dolby guy came in and monitored all the outputs with me, and I learned a lot about his side of the process.

More good news is that I've been asked to work here again next week. I'm dubbing the Taiwanese Mandarin version then. (I was to have a week off between my two weeks here) So, tomorrow I ride home, then the next day I ride back. That's a lot of riding just for 20 hours at home, but it's worth it to see Chana and the kids.

More sound news later. I gotta go. I'm getting hungry for oranges.

The Clone Wars & Skywalker Sound

I am happy to say that I have been hired by Skywalker Sound to work on the animated feature, The Clone Wars. I've been brought on to help with the foreign language mixes. We are creating about two dozen foreign language mixes for this world-wide release. I'll be re-recording the Swedish and Catalan versions, starting next week.

Excuse me while I geek-out a bit; it is such an honor for me to have the opportunity to work on anything officially Star Wars related. After all, it is the most storied and legendary film franchise in history. I'm truly thankful.

**Educational Tangent**
I have to admit, I'd never heard of Catalan before. It turns out that it is understood by about 11 million people, and used mostly in Spain and remote parts of France. I would've missed that question on Jeopardy.

It's a two week job, so not necessarily a long-term position, but one thing leads to another, as they say.


This comes at a good time, because the start date for my other "next gig" has been delayed again and again over the last several weeks. That one will happen, just not in my time frame it seems. (as soon as "Escape From Planet Earth" starts for me, I'll fill you in on all the details, and I'm also planning a video blog series based on it)

So, right now I'm just prepping the Suzuki for a long-distance run up to Marin County. It should be a beautiful ride up the coast.

Be sure and check out the Star Wars site. There are a lot of great videos to whet your appetite for this movie. From what I've seen, it looks incredible.

New Projects Now Out on DVD

Last fall and early winter, I mixed a couple of indie features (one documentary and one drama-mentary), and they have finally come out on the market.

Morristown is a feature-length drama/documentary based on a ballet school in a small town of the same name. We had several sound challenges, but overall I think it came out sounding very good. (And myself being someone with a limited eye for dance, I think there's some great stuff of that sort in there too.) Check it out at: morristownthemovie.com. (no imdb page as of yet)

The Sophisticated Misfit is a documentary that follows the life and art of Los Angeles based artist Josh Agle (aka: Shag). He has a remarkable style that is often imitated, though never really equaled. (That's his work above.) See about getting the movie HERE. I have fallen into his fan-base, though unfortunately, I'll probably never have the opportunity to get one of his original pieces.

This film also had challenges in the production sound, but we got it dialed in pretty well, and I think the content of both of these movies makes up for any of the sound flaws. The filmmakers, Christo Garcia (Morristown) and Mark Chervinsky (Sophisticated Misfit) are now film partners, so they are collaborating on their projects. They make a good team.

Oscar Sound 2-fer

The Bourne Ultimatum pulled off a double Academy Award win in the sound categories tonight, "Best Sound Editing" and "Best Sound Mixing". It's a great movie, great sound effects, and great mixing. Check it out.

The last films to win in both categories: King Kong (2006), and before that, Master and Commander (2004).