Categories One-by-Two: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

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dws1982
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Re: Categories One-by-Two: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

Post by dws1982 »

A couple of things worth noting:
1) It's pretty rare for a movie to win Sound Mixing and lose Sound Editing. Unless I overlooked something, Slumdog Millionaire and In the Heat of the NIght (back in another Oscar era) were the only two movie to do this. (More on this below.)
2) It's even more rare for these categories to split between two movies nominated in both categories. This has happened once: When Slumdog Millionaire won Sound Mixing and The Dark Knight won Sound Editing.

All that basically is to say that splits in this category are almost always the result of one movie not being nominated in the other category. It's usually the Sound Mixing winner not nominated in Sound Editing: You have all of those musical-themed winners like Whiplash, Les Miserables, Dreamgirls, Ray, and Chicago; you have those like The English Patient and The Last Emperor that take it as part of a Best Picture sweep and wouldn't have been real contenders in Sound Editing; occasionally, you have those movies that just, for whatever fluke reason, don't get nominated for Sound Editing despite having plenty of action and combat and things that you associate with that category--think Return of the King, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, The Last of the Mohicans, Glory. I think any of those films could've easily pulled in Sound Editing to their win tally if they had just been nominated.

I know Return of the King, Black Hawk Down, and Gladiator all made the list of finalists for Sound Editing (couldn't find anything on The Last of the Mohicans or Glory), and in the modern era of preferential ballot and no shortlist, I think they would've made it. So I don't really consider those as strong cases.

It's much more common to see a movie lose Sound Mixing and win Sound Editing. Just last year American Sniper did; Skyfall did; even when the Sound Editing winner isn't nominated for Sound Mixing (Zero Dark Thirty, Letters From Iwo Jima), it's almost always something that would've made perfect sense as a Sound nominee.

My basic thought is that unless there's a Sound Mixing (or Sound Editing) nominee that really stands out on its own, voters tend to vote in tandem in these categories. The issue here is that all four of the movies nominated in both categories would make sense as double Mixing/Editing winners in most years. Usually you'll get something like War Horse or Argo which gets both nominations but doesn't seem likely to contend for both (or either) awards, but any of these have winner credentials in both categories. I guess what it comes down to is the level of support they have. On basis of no Best Picture nomination I'd probably rank Star Wars fourth, and The Martian third because it has faded considerably since nominations day. Between the other two, I'd lean towards Mad Max: Fury Road because it's more traditional in terms of sustained action and sound. But The Revenant winning one or both wouldn't be a shock, and it might be a solid Best Picture bellwether: If it wins these two categories, it's very difficult to see it losing Best Picture. (But then again I felt the same way two years ago when Gravity won not-certain Editing and Score awards.)
anonymous1980
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Categories One-by-Two: Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

Post by anonymous1980 »

Sound Mixing:
Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens


Sound Editing:
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens


I hope you guys don't mind but I decided to put the two sound categories together since they're almost always connected anyway. I can see one of three scenarios happening in these two categories: The Revenant wins both. Mad Max: Fury Road wins both. Or they give Sound Editing to one and Sound Mixing to the other. The only other scenario I can see is a Star Wars mini-sweep of the below-the-line categories which I doubt will happen.
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