Oscars 2013 Category Breakdown: Best Sound Editing

Every year, leading up to the Oscars, I break down every single category. It’s essentially a precursor to my picks. I explain all the stuff that needs to be explained in detail, so when the time comes to make my picks, I can refer to it as a shorthand.

In the articles, I’ll go over each category’s history, show previous winners and nominees, then list the current year’s nominees, talk about the guild history, if it’s important, what the guilds went with this year, whether that means anything for that particular category — all the background you need to know to make an informed decision. And then, once that’s all done, I’ll rank the nominees in that category in order of their likelihood to win, based on how I see it at the present.

The only difference between this year and previous years is that this year, I’ll be doing only one category a day instead of multiple categories. This is so I can take more time with each category and not stuff a bunch into a single article for information overload, and, simply, so I don’t have to do as much work. Though it is also easier this way. One category, one day.

Today is Best Sound Editing. Essentially — it’s all the components that go into Sound Mixing. The compilation of all the sounds. Editing and assembling all the dialogue, putting sound effects to the images, layering it all together — that’s Sound Editing. Sound Mixing is purely the sound mix as you hear it in the film, and Sound Editing is the creation of that mix, specifically on the sound effects front. You know, making that engine revving noise, or coming up with the sound that the Predator makes. Wall-E. That’s Sound Editing. (Pixar in general has a lot of Sound Editing nominations but not Sound Mixing nominations (though sometimes they get both). In general, it’s about the creation of the sound mix and not the sound mix.

That said — this is another category with an easy winner this year, and will be very easy to figure.

Best Sound Editing

All Is Lost

Captain Phillips

Gravity

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Lone Survivor

Here are (straight from last year) the winners of the MPSE Golden Reel Awards. The caveats from last year still apply (the MPSE Awards were murky until the past decade or so and that the Oscar category only had three nominees before 2006. So we can really only look at the last six years for any kind of help at all):

1991: MPSE: SFX + Foley goes to Barton Fink. Their Dialogue + ADR goes to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Terminator 2: Judgment Day wins the Oscar for Sound Editing, beating Backdraft and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. So, MPSE has nothing to do with the Oscars, and the obvious choice wins.

1992 – Under Siege wins MPSE SFX + Foley and Alien 3 wins Dialgoue + ADR. Bram Stoker’s Dracula wins the Oscar over Under Siege and Aladdin. No comment on any of that.

1993 – MPSE: Jurassic Park wins SFX + Foley and Schindler’s List wins Dialogue + ADR. Jurassic Park wins the Oscar over Cliffhanger and the Fugitive. Pretty obvious choice.

1994 – MPSE: Speed wins SFX + Foley, Forrest Gump wins Dialogue and ADR. Oscar: Speed beats Gump andClear and Present Danger. This is somewhat telling. The action film beats the Oscar film with war scenes.

1995 – MPSE: Braveheart and Crimson Tide tie for SFX + Foley, and Crimson Tide wins for Dialogue + ADR.Braveheart takes the Oscar over Crimson Tide and Batman Forever. Oscar movie with many battle scenes wins over action/sub movie. Understandable.

1996 – We ignore this one since it’s totally random. You can go look it up, but trust me, it’s irrelevant.

1997 – Titanic wins the Oscar and both MPSE categories.

1998 – Saving Private Ryan wins the Oscar and both MPSE categories.

1999 – The Matrix wins the Oscar and wins MPSE SFX + Foley while American Beauty wins MPSE Dialogue + ADR. Pretty obvious The Matrix would win the Oscar.

2000 – MPSE gives SFX + Foley to Gladiator and Dialogue + ADR to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The Oscar category consists only of two nominees: U-571 and Space Cowboys. U-571 obviously wins.

2001 – MPSE gives their SFX + Foley award to Black Hawk Down and A Beautiful Mind wins Dialogue + ADR. The Oscar category consists only of Pearl Harbor and Monsters, Inc. Clearly Pearl Harbor wins.

2002 – MPSE gives SFX + Foley to Road to Perdition (a spirited choice) and their Dialogue + ADR to Gangs of New York. Two Towers wins the Oscar, beating Road to Perdition and Minority Report. This is the onlyRings film to win this category. You know why? Big ass fucking battle scene.

2003 – MPSE gives SFX + Foley to Master and Commander and Dialogue + ADR to Pirates of the Caribbean. In the Oscar category, Master and Commander beats Pirates and Finding Nemo (which won MPSE for Animation).

2004 – MPSE SFX + Foley goes to The Aviator, and Dialogue + ADR goes to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Incredibles wins the Oscar, beating The Polar Express and Spider-Man 2. Weird category.

2005 – MPSE SFX + Foley goes to War of the Worlds and Dialogue and ADR goes to Memoirs of a Geisha.King Kong wins the Oscar, beating War of the Worlds and Geisha. I guess they must have really liked the film. (Or that Andy Serkis thing was a big clincher.)

Okay, now we’ve reached 2006. Now there are five nominees at the Oscars.

2006 – Letters from Iwo Jima wins both MPSE awards and the Oscar.

2007 – The Bourne Ultimatum wins both MPSE awards and the Oscar.

In 2008, MPSE introduces many of the awards we see now. They get much more specific.

2008: MPSE: Music in a Feature Film goes to The Dark Knight. SFX + Foley goes to Dark Knight. Dialogue + ADR goes to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR (essentially, Sound Mixing) goes to Slumdog Millionaire. The Dark Knight wins the Sound Editing Oscar (Slumdog wins Sound Mixing).

2009: MPSE: Avatar wins for Music in a Feature Film and SFX + Foley. Dialogue + ADR goes to Inglourious Basterds. (If you’ve noticed, the Dialogue + ADR award tends to go to well-written films.) Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR (Sound Mixing, basically, again) goes to District 9 (un-nominated for Sound at the Oscars). The Oscar goes to The Hurt Locker (which clearly points to people not wanting to vote for Avatar).

2010: MPSE: Music in a Feature Film and SFX + Foley go to Inception. Dialogue + ADR goes to The Social Network. (See what I mean about Dialogue + ADR?) Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR goes toToy Story 3 (which loses Sound Mixing to Inception). Inception wins the Oscar (both of them).

2011: SFX + Foley goes to War Horse, Hugo wins for Music, Super 8 took Dialogue + ADR, and Tintin took Animation. Hugo won the Oscar (both of them).

2012: SFX + Foley went to Skyfall, Life of Pi won Dialogue + ADR and Music (though Les Mis won for Music in a Musical), and Wreck-It Ralph won for Animation. The Oscar was a TIE between Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty.

The trends I saw there were that if any film won more than one MPSE Award, it won the Oscar all times but one (which was Avatar, and that one seems like they deliberately didn’t want to vote for it). Then again, action films tend to do better than otherwise. So that really only helps us so much.

Also, one other thing I did, which may or may not be helpful for us is go over how many times a film has won both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Here they are:

• 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Not really, since the Editing award was a special achievement, but that just means they didn’t have a category that year. It would have won if there were other nominees.)
• 1982, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• 1983, The Right Stuff
• 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• 1993, Jurassic Park
• 1994, Speed
• 1997, Titanic
• 1998, Saving Private Ryan
• 1999, The Matrix
• 2005, King Kong
• 2007, The Bourne Ultimatum
• 2009, The Hurt Locker
• 2010, Inception
• 2011, Hugo

And we’ll probably be adding 2013 to this list as well. Just looking at what we’re figuring is going to win.

Oh, and I guess I should go over this year’s MPSE Golden Reel nominees as well. (They’re not announcing for another five days, so predictions could change at the last minute. But I doubt they’re gonna go anywhere but the obvious.)

This year, for SFX + Foley, the nominees are: All Is Lost, Captain Phillips, Fast & Furious 6, Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Iron Man 3 and Lone Survivor. Your Oscar category is in there, plus two blockbusters. (I expect Gravity to win this in a cakewalk. Or a spacewalk.)

Dialogue + ADR nominees are: American Hustle, August: Osage County, Captain Phillips, Gravity, Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Lone Survivor, and 12 Years a Slave. (I’m figuring this will be something that’s not Gravity. Maybe it sweeps, but I’m figuring it’ll go to something else.)

Music nominees are: American Hustle, 47 Ronin, Gravity, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, 12 Years a Slave and World War Z. (This could also go against Gravity.)

Music in a Musical nominees are: Frozen, Inside Llewyn Davis, Justin Bieber’s Believe and Metallica Through the Never. Clearly a two horse race.

Animated nominees are: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, The Croods, Despicable Me 2, Epic, Ernest & Celestine, Frozen, Monsters University and Planes. (Wouldn’t be shocked to see Pixar take this over the obvious choice.)

We’ll adjust the expectations accordingly based on how these shake out, but for now, the category turned out as I expected (if you want to know the difference between Mixing and Editing, look at the two different nominees this year: All Is Lost made Editing, and Llewyn Davis made Mixing. That’s the difference), and it seems clear-cut.

Rankings:

5. All Is Lost – This is the film’s only nomination. They passed up Redford and the Score. It’s not winning. No one even saw this. It’s destined to be one of the overlooked films of 2013. No chance it wins. None at all.

4. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – This would be #5 if All Is Lost weren’t so blatantly underseen. People looking at their ballots will skip over that because they don’t know what it is. They’ll skip over this because they’ve been there, done that before. This won’t get votes. They’ve moved on from Middle Earth at the Oscars.

3. Lone Survivor – It’s got respect, but I can’t see it suddenly winning votes over everything else. It has no surge, and the other two films garnered more overall nominations. Plus, again, there are other factors at play to make the others heavier favorites. This is clearly only a dark horse at best.

2. Captain Phillips – Greengrass swept the Sound categories in ’07 with Bourne Ultimatum. It clearly has a shot. Though, in an open race, how can you not consider Gravity the favorite to sweep the Sound categories? How can this win one but not the other? Does that mean the Academy is really going to differentiate between the two? Or are they gonna do what they did in 2011, which is just vote across the board and check the two off? I’m betting on that.

1. Gravity – Like I said, I don’t see them really differentiating between the two categories unless a musical is present. I can’t see Gravity winning one Sound award but not the other, especially since the same films are essentially nominated in both categories. They’re just gonna tick it off in both categories and move on. And it’s gonna win both. That seems obvious. Even if you think it might not win, how can you not consider it the de facto favorite in the category regardless? That’s essentially what this article is for. It’s clearly the favorite. And it’s gonna win.

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So the Sound categories are done. Tomorrow is Visual Effects, and that one will be the quickest article I write this month. (I honestly want to just write one word and be done with it. Because that’s all I need to really do.)

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