Oscars Spotlight: Visual Effects, Film Editing, and Sound
Dune should dominate these post-production categories.
The Nominees (keep scrolling for all three categories):
Visual Effects
DUNE
Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer
FREE GUY
Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and Dan Sudick
NO TIME TO DIE
Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould
SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS
Christopher Townsend, Joe Farrell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME
Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick
Who Will Win: Dune
Who Should Win: Dune
Image Credit: Polygon
Film Editing
DON'T LOOK UP
Hank Corwin
DUNE
Joe Walker
KING RICHARD
Pamela Martin
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Peter Sciberras
TICK, TICK...BOOM!
Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum
Who Will Win: King Richard
Who Could Win: Dune
Who Should Win: As much I want Dune to max out, I’m going with King Richard.
Image Credit: The Hollywood Reporter
Sound
BELFAST
Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather and Niv Adiri
DUNE
Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett
NO TIME TO DIE
Simon Hayes, Oliver Tarney, James Harrison, Paul Massey and Mark Taylor
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Richard Flynn, Robert Mackenzie and Tara Webb
WEST SIDE STORY
Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy
Who Will Win: Dune
Who Should Win: Dune
Image Credit: IndieWire
Even though the Academy snubbed Dune Director Denis Villeneuve in the Best Director category, pundits still expect Dune to have some kind of sweep in what the industry refers to as the “below the line” categories. This phrase originally referred to the literal line in a film’s budget sheet, separating the production costs for writers, directors, and actors (above the line) from the rest of the production team (below the line). Some Oscarologists have also historically referred to these as “technical” categories, but that nomenclature seems to be on the out since it downplays the artistry that often goes into these aspects of filmmaking. The question with Dune at the Oscars this year is not whether or not it will sweep below the line, but how much.
In these post-production categories I’ve clustered here — visual effects, film editing, and sound — I feel fairly confident in predicting Dune to win two out of three. The vast, seamless, and immersive world-building that Villeneuve achieved would not have been possible without the visual effects team to make it all look believable. I remember being downright gobsmacked when I saw the ornithoptors and sandworms on the big screen for the first time. I have a lot of love for some of the other films nominated here — Shang-Chi’s visual effects in the first 2/3 were grounded in a way that supported the storytelling, and having the multiverse crack open and dozens of villains running around without losing the audience was hard for Spider-Man: No Way Home to pull off. Dune is just operating on a whole other level, though.
The sound category is similarly a slam dunk for the previously deemed un-adaptable sci-fi epic. Action-heavy films usually do very well in this category because the sound work is often more challenging and more noticeable. The big escape scene in which Paul and his mother, Jessica, must flee into the desert would on its own warrant an Oscar because it contrasts silence and huge explosions so dramatically. It’s been pretty well-advertised that Hans Zimmer created completely new instruments for his score, but the sound design team also innovated, creating “secret noises” to help build out the details of the world. According to The New York Times, sound editors Mark Mangini and Theo Green used Rice Krispies to create a crunch for the sands of Arrakkis. For my personal vote, The Power of the Dog is a strong runner-up because the menacing whistling and banjo playing is so perfectly tense in a way that facilitates the story.
Dune is the perfect blend of popular genre and prestige filmmaking, not unlike Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which won six Oscars, including Sound Editing for none other than Mark Mangini. A lot of pundits have compared Dune to Mad Max in order to predict how the former will do on Oscar night. Both received 10 nominations. Both made it into Best Picture. They are both visionary dystopias. So I wouldn’t be surprised by a similar level of success, especially below the line. Right now I only have Dune winning four statues on the night, but there are at least two categories where an upset could bump that tally up to six.
The one place where I am doubtful of Dune’s reach is in film editing, mostly because of its poor performance in this category at precursor awards. King Richard won the ACE (American Cinema Editors guild). The BAFTA (British Oscar) went to No Time to Die. Critic’s Choice picked West Side Story, which wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar in this category. As Josh Parham says on the epic four-hour predictions episode of The Next Best Picture Podcast, the takeaway here is that given the opportunity, Dune did not win anything. If it can’t win with any of these other groups, how can it win on Oscar Sunday?
In order to try to explain Dune’s weakness in this category, The Next Best Picture podcast speculated that voters may not go for Dune in editing because a.) the film slows down and feels longer/less peppy than King Richard towards the end and b.) that the film is Part 1 and that they may want to wait until Part 2 to decide how the story’s pacing fares. While I would hope that this would not deter votes, I can see how it could.
A huge stat that Oscar pundits like to cite, on the other hand, is the coupling of film editing with sound. The two categories have overlapped every year since 2013. The asterisk next to that stat is that up until last year there were actually two different sound categories to potentially win — sound editing and sound mixing. This gave a single film more of a chance to overlap between sound and editing. Last year, when there was only one general sound category, Sound of Metal still won in both editing and sound, upholding the statistical correlation.
This puts me at a bit of an impasse with two conflicting Oscar prediction metrics, but in the end I have to go with the ACE winner. When I originally saw King Richard, I noticed that the editing, especially when people were actually playing tennis, was incredibly strong because it made the tennis matches very legible, easy to follow, and held my interest the entire time. I can see that catching some Academy members’ attention as well. This would also be a nice place to honor King Richard outside of Will Smith’s projected win. It’s a mid-to-strong Best Picture contender, and as such should win more than one award.