Oscars 2023: The Best Audio Predictions

January 31, 2023

We’ll be updating all of our Oscar predictions throughout the season, so stay tuned to IndieWire for the latest news on the 2023 Oscar race. The nomination round of voting will take place between January 12 and January 17, 2023, with the official Oscar nominations announced on January 24, 2023. The final vote will take place between March 2 and 7, 2023. Finally the 95. Oscar Award The telecast will air on Sunday, March 12th and live on ABC at 8:00 PM ET/ 5:00 PM PT.

Check out our initial thoughts on what to expect at the 95th anniversary Oscars here.

State of the species

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “The Batman,” “Elvis” and “Top Gun: Maverick” were nominated for best sound Oscars last Tuesday. All five films were previously nominated by MPSE’s sound editing and CAS sound mixing teams; the 70th MPSE Golden Reel Awards on February 26 at the Wilshire Ebell Theater and the 59th CAS Awards on March 4 at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown.

The list that was left out included Best Picture favorite “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Moonage Daydream,” Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and “Babylon.” Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope,’ which has topped IndieWire’s Best Audio of 2022 list, is totally down.

Now it’s a race between favorite “Maverick” and everything else (including the returning Oscar-winning team “Avatar”), with late riser “All Quiet” like Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling “Elvis.” musical biopic with the most craft names, six apiece.

The hyper-realistic sound in the cockpits of the ‘Maverick’ worked superbly with the innovative camera work built around the Sony Rialto Camera Extension System. With a collective resume of past Tom Cruise vehicles, including the two most recent ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, the sound team of Mark Weingarten (production sound mixer), James H. Mather (sound designer/supervising sound editor) . , Al Nelson (sound designer/supervising sound editor), Chris Burdon (re-recording mixer) and Mark Taylor (re-recording mixer) created a “synaptic” experience emphasizing breathing and joystick manipulation while creating strategic layers. in the noises of the jet, including the sound of the air rushing over the wings and the sound reflection of aerobatics.

With “Elvis,” Luhrmann’s sound guru Wayne Pashley (sound designer/sound editor/re-recording mixer) began a great American operatic tragedy that would distinguish the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Pashley and his team of sound mixer David Lee, Oscar-winning re-recording mixer Andy Nelson (also nominated for “The Batman” this year), and re-recording mixer Michael Keller mainly created a complex web of music and sound effects. the driving force behind sound design. Using a combination of playback recording and live recording, fully restored vintage microphones from each era were used to capture the performances and seamlessly integrate new Austin Butler recordings and original Elvis Presley vocals.

James Cameron’s “The Way of Water” created a complex jungle and water soundscape created by four-time Academy Award-winning supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Christopher Boyes, sound editor Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, sound mixer Julian Howarth, re-recording mixer Gary drove. Summers and sound engineer Michael Hedges. In addition, Howarth developed a system where speakers surrounded the stage and performed on-location sound design when recording performances set in the forest or by the sea.

For Edward Berger’s anti-war epic All Quiet, supervising sound editors Markus Stemler and Frank Kruse, sound editor Viktor Prášil, and re-recording mixers Lars Ginzel and Stefan Korte created an immersive WWI battlefield soundscape. and shocking. They emphasized the soldiers’ vocal connection to war, giving the agents of death various nicknames (the machine gun was a sewing machine). This was used to great effect in the scene where the whir of the sewing machine turns into gunfire. Silence was also important, and variations in human breath or the slightest gasp were as effective as the impact of bombs.

“The Batman” serves as a reimagined detective procedural set in a grungy, thoroughly messed-up Gotham. The team of William Files (supervising sound editor), Douglas Murray (supervising sound editor), “Elvis” nominee Nelson (re-recording mixer) and Stuart Wilson (sound mixing) paid close attention to Robert Pattinson’s individual voices. the soft-spoken but physically imposing Batman and his costume (and, by extension, his muscle car, the Batmobile), and the distorted voice of Paul Dano’s Riddler.

Below is a list of the candidates in order of probability of victory:

“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount)
“Elvis” (Warner Bros.)
“Avatar: The Path of Water” (20th century/Disney)
“Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix)
“The Batman” (Warner Bros.)

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