Oscars 2017 Category Breakdown: Best Sound Mixing

Every year, as we lead up to the Oscars, I break down each of the 24 categories. I do this to familiarize everyone with the category; what the trends are, how the guilds and stuff help (or don’t), etc. I also do it as a precursor to my giant Oscar ballot. I get most of the heavy lifting out of the way here, so that way when I get to the article, I’m just kind of riffing on how I think it’ll turn out and talking myself into all the bad decisions. It’s like college. And this is the pregame.

How these articles work is — I give you all the previous winners and nominees of each of the categories, then tell you how accurate each of the respective guilds and precursors are in what they vote for versus what wins the Oscar, tell you how each of them voted this year, then give you this year’s category, along with a quick rundown of how we ended up with that category (what was a surprise, etc). After that, I rank each of this year’s nominees in terms of how I see them right now in terms of their likelihood to win. Which is nothing more than my perception (notice that underline, even though you won’t) of how the category seems at the moment based on everything I know and have seen. Which will give you a general sense of the favorites.

Today is Best Sound Mixing. The one that isn’t Sound Editing.

Real quick — Sound Editing is the compilation of all the sounds and effects that go into a movie, and Sound Mixing is the full mixing of the sound that you hear in the film. So… gunshots, car engines, the soundtrack, all that stuff… Editing. The blending of all that together — Mixing.

The Sound categories generally have to be taken in conjunction, but for Mixing specifically, the guild to look at is CAS, the Cinema Audio Society. CAS has handed out awards since 1993. Here are all the winners:

• 1993 – Jurassic Park (won the Oscar)
• 1994 – Forrest Gump (lost the Oscar to Speed)
• 1995 —  Apollo 13 (won the Oscar)
• 1996 – The English Patient (won the Oscar)
• 1997 – Titanic (won the Oscar)
• 1998 – Saving Private Ryan (won the Oscar)
• 1999 – The Matrix (won the Oscar)
• 2000 – Gladiator (won the Oscar)
• 2001 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (lost the Oscar to Black Hawk Down)
• 2002 – Road to Perdition (lost the Oscar to Chicago)
• 2003 — Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (lost the Oscar to Return of the King)
• 2004 – The Aviator (lost the Oscar to Ray)
• 2005 – Walk the Line (lost the Oscar to King Kong)
• 2006 – Dreamgirls (won the Oscar)
• 2007 – No Country for Old Men (lost the Oscar to The Bourne Ultimatum)
• 2008 – Slumdog Millionaire (won the Oscar)
• 2009 – The Hurt Locker (won the Oscar)
• 2010 – True Grit (lost the Oscar to Inception)
• 2011 – Hugo (won the Oscar)
• 2012 – Les Misérables (won the Oscar)
• 2013 — Gravity (won the Oscar)
• 2014 — Birdman (lost the Oscar to Whiplash)
• 2015 — The Revenant (lost the Oscar to Mad Max: Fury Road)
• 2016 — La La Land (lost the Oscar to Hacksaw Ridge)

They’re 13/24 all time, which isn’t great. But they’re over 50%. So that’s good. As you can see, big Best Picture candidates tend to win this along with music-heavy films, but there’s room for other stuff too. A Best Picture nominee has won this category every year for the past nine.

There is no real other precursor for this one, since BAFTA has a single Sound category for everything, and BFCA tried a Sound category for a few years, but they were three and out before they stopped. So you pretty much have CAS, a little bit of BAFTA, a little bit of MPSE, a little bit of common sense, and a lot of Lou Bega.

I’m also gonna get all the later stuff out of the way now, since it’s quick — this is a rare year where Mixing and Editing had the exact same nominees. It’s never happened, ever, with both having five nominees. So, while we could have successfully guessed 4/5 being similar, we likely didn’t have all five being exactly the same. CAS had Wonder Woman on their list instead of Blade Runner, otherwise, exactly the same.

This year, CAS went to Dunkirk. BAFTA’s single Sound category went to Dunkirk.

Meanwhile, MPSE’s Effects + Foley award went to Blade Runner, while their Music award went to Dunkirk.

I think we can safely parse this one, don’t you?

Best Sound Mixing

Baby Driver

Blade Runner 2049

Dunkirk

The Shape of Water

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Rankings:

5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi — Force Awakens got both Sound nominations, but came away empty-handed. Can’t see them voting for this out of nowhere. The other three feel like legitimate candidates and the fourth is a Best Picture frontrunner. No reason to put this over any of those. Plus, zero precursors and zero franchise love so far. Until it wins one, gotta assume the nomination is the reward.

4. The Shape of Water — Putting a film with 13 nominations this low in a category like this always feels like you’re taking your life in your hands, but what can you do? This category is legitimately stacked. Even if it is gonna win Best Picture, they do tend to vote for films like this in categories that make sense, and this one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Birdman was nominated in both sound categories and didn’t win either, why should this? Plus, if it’s gonna win one, how can you figure which one that’s gonna be? I’m gonna go with my gut, the eye test, and the precursors, and say this is just a nominee here and has no real shot. Don’t put it less than fourth, though, since even if you get caught with your pants down, you don’t wanna be bent over too.

3. Blade Runner 2049 — This feels dicey. BUT… one movie over this is a war film and the other is a film that syncs music and sound pretty seamlessly. While this is a contender, I can’t say I consider it anything more than a dark horse at the moment. Third choice feels right for it.

2. Baby Driver — If it won any precursors, I’d have felt better about its chances. But it hasn’t. So we’re purely going on its reputation of being great on sound. Which it is. Blade Runner at least got an Editing win somewhere in there. But still, no matter how you slice it, one film is the favorite in both Sound categories. So that’s what it is until Oscar night, when you see if any of these can beat it.

1. Dunkirk — It has a CAS win, it won BAFTA for Sound (which is for both categories, but theoretically mainly Mixing), and it won an MPSE Award (if not the big one). Gotta call it the favorite here. Might not win both Sound categories, but it’s certainly looking like the favorite in both. So let’s start with that and then get into the annual tradition of, “Please, dear god, Mike, don’t split the fucking sound categories.” Don’t we all like that?

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