Academy Awards Draw: Best Sound Editing Yields Two Winners

At the 85th Academy Awards, there was a rare tie between Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall in the category for Best Sound Editing. Zero Dark Thirty’s Paul N.J. Ottosson was the first to take the podium and accept his Oscar for Best Sound Editing. Per Halberg and Karen Baker Landers received the second for the James Bond film Skyfall.

Sound editing is an intricate and complex part of the process of making a movie. Those who work on the sound editing team of a film are responsible for putting together all of the sounds heard throughout a feature – barring recorded dialogue and the score. Ottosson explained in an interview his work assembling the sound for the scene in Zero Dark Thirty when Jennifer Ehle’s character, Jessica, awaits the arrival of a doctor who, unbeknownst to her, is a suicide bomber.

“If you looked at that scene without any picture, you just listened to it, you would see how much sound work goes into being a lot of sound, to almost nothing, to transforming to music, to transforming to a lot of sound effects again," Ottosson told Entertainment Weekly. "And then, of course, this guy comes with bombs and blows himself up as well as everyone else there. The scene is strong by itself, but the work we did made it even stronger. That’s the goal for most scenes, and the movie itself: Find these peaks and valleys to give the story the room it needs to breathe or enhance the story that you have.”

Oscar ties, although rare, have occurred in the past. Most recently it occurred in 1995 when Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life tied with Trevor in the Best Short Film (Live Action) category. However, the most famous instance was in 1969 when the votes for Best Actress resulted in a draw. Barbra Streisand, nominated for Funny Girl, and Katherine Hepburn, nominated for The Lion in Winter, both took home the Oscar that year.

—Chelsea Regan

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