CAS warms to “Frozen” for Animation
It was an out-of-this-world evening for Gravity which earned Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture at the 50th annual Cinema Audio Society Awards. The winning sound mixing team on Gravity consisted of production mixer Chris Munro, CAS; re-recording mixers Skip Lievsay, CAS, Niv Adiri and Christopher Benstead; scoring mixer Gareth Cousins; ADR mixers Chris Navarro, CAS and Thomas J. O’Connell; and Foley mixer Adam Fil Mendez.
Taking the top honors in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture–Animated was Frozen and its sound mixing team of original dialogue mixer Gabriel Guy, re-recording mixers David E. Fluhr, CAS and Gabriel Guy, scoring mixer Casey Stone and Foley mixer Mary Jo Lang.
Held in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s famed Crystal Ballroom and hosted by Doug McIntyre, the program also celebrated the professional contributions of re-recording mixer Andy Nelson by honoring him with the CAS Career Achievement Award. A two-time CAS and Academy Award winner for Les Misérables and Saving Private Ryan, Nelson was feted by Academy Award-winning composer John Williams, Twentieth Century Fox president of Feature Post Production Ted Gagliano and CAS president David Fluhr. “Receiving this award from the CAS is such an honor because it’s from my peers…people who love this craft as much as I do, and I am humbled by their generosity and commitment to excellence,” said Nelson.
Academy Award-winning producer Edward Zwick (Shakespeare in Love) was presented with the CAS Filmmaker Award. Zwick and CAS Career Achievement honoree Nelson collaborated on Zwick’s CAS and Oscar-nominated Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai, as well as, Love and Other Drugs, Defiance and Courage Under Fire. Presenting Zwick his award were Anna Behlmer and Jeffrey S. Wexler, CAS
During the evening, there was a poignant tribute to Ray Dolby, inventor and founder of Dolby Laboratories. Dolby exec David W. Gray presented the tribute that included archival footage of Ray Dolby accepting the CAS Life Achievement Award at the 1989 CAS Awards.
Celebrating its 50th year, the CAS chose to have eight past presidents of the CAS present awards in the various categories: James A. Corbett, Michael Minkler, Gary Bourgeois, Edwin J. Somers, Robert Deschaine, Steve Hawk, Melissa Hofmann and Edward L. Moskowitz.
Other winners this evening included:
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Television Movie or Mini-Series:
Behind the Candelabra and the sound mixing team of production mixer Dennis Towns, re-recording mixer Larry Blake, scoring mixer Thomas Vicari and Foley mixer Scott Curtis.
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – One Hour:
Game Of Thrones: “The Rains of Castamere” and the sound mixing team of production mixers Ronan Hill, CAS and Richard Dyer, re-recording mixers Onnalee Blank, CAS and Matthew Waters, CAS and Foley mixer Brett Voss.
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – Half Hour:
Modern Family: “Goodnight Gracie” and the sound mixing team of production mixer Stephen A. Tibbo, CAS and re-recording mixers Dean Okrand and Brian R. Harman, CAS.
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Non Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials:
History of the Eagles – Part One and the sound mixing team of re-recording mixers Tom Fleischman, CAS and Elliot Scheiner.
The winners of the 10th CAS Technical Achievement Awards:
PRODUCTION: Sound Devices, LLC – 633 Mixer/Recorder
POSTPRODUCTION: iZotope – RX 3 Advanced
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More