As Oscars’ Sound Mixing and Editing Are Combined, Noms Include ‘News of the World’ and ‘Sound of Metal’
Sound of Metal #SoundofMetal
With the Motion Picture Academy introducing a new best sound category this year — combining the prior sound editing and sound mixing categories — its Oscar nominees are Greyhound, Mank, News of the World, Soul and Sound of Metal.
All five nominees previously received at least one nomination from the Motion Picture Sound Editors, for its Golden Reel Awards in sound editing; and the Cinema Audio Society for sound mixing. Greyhound, News of the World, Soul and Sound of Metal were also nominated for the BAFTA Awards’ combined sound category.
Some notable names among this category’s Oscar nominees include Skywalker Sound’s Ren Klyce, who is a double nominee as supervising sound editor and rerecording mixer on David Fincher’s Mank and Pixar’s Soul (for which he is also credited as a sound designer.) These movies, which challenged him to create sound for 1930s Hollywood and an ethereal afterlife, are Klyce’s eighth and ninth Oscar nominations.
For Mank, Kylce is nominated alongside Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance and Drew Kunin; and for Soul, alongside Coya Elliott and David Parker.
Skywalker’s supervising sound editor Elliott is one of two women nominated for best sound. The other is Sound of Metal’s rerecording mixer Michelle Couttolenc, who is nominated for the film about a drummer who is losing his hearing, with Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Carlos Cortés and Phillip Bladh.
Apple TV+’s war film Greyhound is the 13th Oscar nomination for Michael Minkler, who previously won sound mixing Academy Awards for Dreamgirls, Chicago and Black Hawk Down. Combined with his son, Christian, and their uncles, Bob and Lee Minkler, Greyhound takes the Minkler family to a combined total of 17 Oscar nominations (and four wins, for Michael Minkler’s aforementioned Oscars and Bob Minkler’s statuette for 1977’s Star Wars.) It’s unclear why Christian Minkler wasn’t additionally nominated for Greyhound, as he appears to also have a rerecording mixer credit on the film.
Greyhound’s nominees are Michael Minkler, Warren Shaw, Beau Borders and David Wyman. News of the World nominees are Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller and John Pritchett.
A notable number of recent winners of the sound editing and sound mixing Oscars have been the same films, a point often cited when the Academy voted to combine these categories.
A year ago, Ford v Ferrari won the sound editing Oscar while 1917 claimed the award in sound mixing.