Oscars 2019 Category Breakdown: Best Sound Mixing

Here’s how this works: every day leading up to the Oscars, I break down each of the 24 categories. The goal is to both familiarize everyone with the category itself (how it works, what its history is and how you go about figuring out what’s gonna win) while also making it easier to reference when I write my giant article with picks and everything. A lot of the leg work is already here. But really, the goal is to see if there’s anything to look for leading into Oscar night that could be a shortcut to me picking the category.

What we do is — I give you all the winners of the category throughout history, go over all the recent trends if there are any, discuss the precursors and whether or not they matter, and then we talk about this year’s category and how we got to it, and then just look at where we are and rank the nominees in terms of their likelihood of winning (at the current moment in time. Of course, things can and will change going into the ceremony). It’s all pretty simple. I’ve done this every year. Everyone should know the drill.

Today is Best Sound Mixing. Sibilance. Sibilance.

I know I do this every year, but some people need it — Mixing is the entire sound mix you hear on the screen and Editing is the compilation of all those sounds (dialogue, effects, foley, music).

Typically you’ve gotta take both Sound categories as a single entity, since generally they both match, and trying to split them can lead to very bad situations, such as 2016, where I assumed, “Oh, Hacksaw Ridge the war movie… those always win Editing. And then La La Land, musical. Those win Mixing. That’s a good split.” And then Hacksaw won Mixing and Arrival won Editing and I got double fucked. Now, had I taken either of those in both, I’d have split and been fine. So it’s a very slippery and dicey slope and you just kind of have to throw everything on the table and reason your way through it until you come to a place that makes sense to you that you’re comfortable with.

We’ll start with CAS, the sound mixers guild. They’ve given out awards since 1993, and here’s their history:

• 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)
• 2017 — Dunkirk (won the Oscar)
• 2018 — Bohemian Rhapsody (won the Oscar)

They’re 15/26 (58%) all-time. Which is solid. 6/10 the past decade, which is their average.

BAFTA only has a single Sound category that includes everything. However, they are 9/10 the past decade. Their winner has won at least ONE of the Sound categories all but one year:

• 2018 — Bohemian Rhapsody (won Mixing and Editing)
• 2017 — Dunkirk (won Mixing and Editing)
• 2016 — Arrival (won Editing)
• 2015 — The Revenant (lost both categories to Fury Road)
• 2014 — Whiplash (won Mixing)
• 2013 — Gravity (won Mixing and Editing)
• 2012 — Les Misérables (won Mixing)
• 2011 — Hugo (won Mixing and Editing)
• 2010 — Inception (won Mixing and Editing)
• 2009 — The Hurt Locker (won Mixing and Editing)

Not a bad run for them. BFCA, meanwhile, tried a Sound category for three years then got rid of it.

So really, we’re looking at BAFTA, we’re looking at CAS and we’re looking at MPSE, which is the Sound Editors guild. You kinda have to take all the Sound information at once and then work through it all.

But anyway, here’s your category:

Best Sound Mixing

1917

Ad Astra

Ford v Ferarri

Joker

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Ad Astra kind of came out of nowhere, but the other four were expected. You knew Ford v Ferrari and 1917 would get on. Meanwhile, Joker hit every Sound precursor there is, so you had to figure that was on. And Once Upon a Time is a film loaded with needle drops. Made total sense for that to be on too. So Ad Astra’s the only one that came out of nowhere. But hey, good for it.

Looking at the precursors, we only have CAS and MPSE, since BAFTA is gonna announce in a couple of days. But we have enough to loosely rank everything and then shore it up once BAFTA weighs in.

Here’s what the guilds did:

• CAS: Ford v Ferrari
• MPSE:
  • SFX+Foley: Ford v Ferrari
  • Dialogue+ADR: 1917

The other MPSE award went off the board, so it’s irrelevant to these proceedings. But really all that tells you is that it is and always was a two-horse race. So I do want to see where BAFTA goes with it, because that will be the deciding factor for me in at least one of these categories.

Rankings:

5. Ad Astra — This is its only nomination. And two things to note — the last non-Best Picture nominee to win in Mixing was The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007 and the last film to win Mixing as its only nomination was Last of the Mohicans in 1992. Similarly, in Editing, you have to go back to Ghost and the Darkness in 1996 for the last time something won a Sound category on its only nomination. But that’s when Editing was three nominees and not like it is now. Point is, you cannot see this as anything other than a fifth choice no matter how you slice it.

4. Joker — Hard to see this getting any real amount of votes in this category. Zero precursors thus far, and while I guess a BAFTA win isn’t totally out of the question, I’m not sure anyone is anticipating that happening. Which leaves us with… where are the votes coming from? It’s not a film that screams ‘sound design’. I can’t see this getting votes over the other three options left on this list. And absent a precursor, it’s gotta stay fourth.

3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — The music. That’s why this is third. This is a soundtrack heavy film in a category known for ‘musical’ winners — Whiplash, Les Mis, Ray. It didn’t even win Music at MPSE, which is why I can’t think it’s remotely got a chance, but I will have it third on the off-off chance it does. Still, we know where this one’s headed. Those other two choices are pure sound films.

2. Ford v Ferrari — The only reason it’s second despite more precursors is two-fold: 1917 is likely to win Best Picture and has more overall nominations, therefore more overall support. And because I think 1917 is probably gonna win the BAFTA, which will make it the most lauded Sound film of the year in terms of precursors. Now, could there be a split, could this win BAFTA? Sure. But we’ve got a couple days and then a week to figure all that stuff out. For now, I’m calling this the second choice on an anticipatory technicality. It’s still a two-horse race and we’ve got a pretty good handle on how it’s gonna go. That’s the most you could ask for at this point in the race. Especially in a SOUND category.

1. 1917 — It wasn’t nominated at CAS, which could mean they didn’t like it enough to put it there. But it also means we don’t know how it would have done in a final vote there. Might have won if they put it on over Rocketman. We don’t know. MPSE split the two, which is a wash, and now BAFTA’s to come. Assuming this wins BAFTA, I think you have to make it the favorite in at least one of the categories. Editing for sure. And then at that point, do you want to switch them? I mean, maybe Ford v Ferrari can pull off the Bourne trifecta of Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. That’s entirely possible. But short of BAFTA announcing, I have to call this the favorite purely because of the 10 nominations, the fact that it’s the Best Picture favorite at this point and because it’s a war movie, and those do well in the Sound categories.

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