Jay Roach (center) received the CAS Filmmaker Award from Bryan Cranston (at left) and John Ross, CAS.
Photo: Ana Gibert
The Cinema Audio Society (CAS) held its 52nd annual Awards ceremony in the Crystal Ballroom at the historic Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A. on February 20, 2016. Winners for the night included Inside Out for achievement in sound mixing for animated feature; The Revenant for achievement in sound mixing for film; and Game of Thrones and Modern Family for achievements in television, with Fargo picking up the award for TV movies and mini-series.
Technical achievement awards went to Sound Devices for the company’s SL-6 Powering and Wireless System, which works in tandem with its 688 Field Mixer/Recorder, and to iZotope for its popular RX5 Advanced audio editor, known for its advanced audio restoration abilities.
Guests were also treated to an “Art of Sound” exhibition, featuring operating historic audio devices, including the only surviving Edison Kinetiscope from 1894 and an original Bermann Edison tinfoil phonograph.
Filmmaker Jay Roach was given the organization’s Filmmaker Award, presented to him by re-recording mixer John Ross and actor Bryan Cranston, who collaborated with the director on Trumbo.
“A good movie without great sound can sort of work, but a good movie with great sound can connect people in the deepest levels,” Roach says. “It’s visceral.”
Roach said that his earliest awareness of the importance of sound in movies came by watching David Lynch’s Eraserhead, whose sound design he described as “the most disturbing, dystopian, industrial I’ve ever heard, coming from the character’s brain. Lynch was telling the story from the mind’s ear.”
For his many comedies, Roach said he’s learned to pull a mix down after a great gag, “because I know there’s gonna be a laugh, and I want everyone to hear each other, for the laugh to be contagious. That’s the communal experience of comedy.”
ADR Mixer Doc Kane (center) was presented with the CAS Career Achievement Award by Douglas Fluhr, CAS (at left) and Garry Marshall.
Photo: Ana Gibert
Filmmaker Garry Marshall noted something similar in his introduction for longtime Disney ADR mixer Doc Kane, who was given the CAS’s Career Achievement Award, the first ADR mixer so honored. “When everybody in the room says ‘Let’s make the punch line louder,’ you knew there’s no punch unless you can hear the straight line,” says Marshall, who had worked on 12 projects with Kane.
Veteran Disney re-recording mixer David Fluhr noted that it is Kane’s gentle manner that makes clients feel at home, and lets him achieve the best results in his ADR work: “He has a gentle way of making everyone on the stage forget how hard it really is to do, and he gets amazing performances,” Fluhr stated.
The comfort factor is indeed key for a good ADR mixer, Kane told Mix: “You need to have patience, keep your ear open and have good anticipatory skills. But—really important—is keep your finger off the talkback button. If I want to talk to somebody, I’ll walk out onto the stage to make a suggestion. I don’t do it over the talk-back You don’t have to yell or scream; just have a nice conversation.”
The winners of the 52nd CAS Awards are as follows:
Outstanding Achievement In Sound Mixing
Motion Picture—Live Action
The Revenant
Production Mixer: Chris Duesterdiek
Re-recording Mixer: Jon Taylor, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: Frank Montaño
Re-recording Mixer: Randy Thom, CAS
Scoring Mixer: Conrad Hensel
ADR Mixer: Michael Miller, CAS
Foley Mixer: Geordy Sincavage
Motion Picture—Animated
Inside Out
Original Dialog Mixer: Doc Kane
Re-recording Mixer: Tom Johnson
Re-recording Mixer: Michael Semanick
Scoring Mixer: Joel Iwataki
Foley Mixer: Mary Jo Lang, CAS
Television Movie or Mini-Series
Fargo: Season 2 Episode 5
Production Mixer: Michael Playfair, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: Kirk Lynds
Re-recording Mixer: Martin Lee
TelevisionSeries—1 Hour
Game of Thrones: Hardhome
Production Mixer: Ronan Hill, CAS
Production Mixer: Richard Dyer, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: Onnalee Blank, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: Mathew Waters, CAS
Foley Mixer: Brett Voss, CAS
TelevisionSeries—Half-Hour
Modern Family: Connection Lost
Production Mixer: Stephen A. Tibbo, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: Dean Okrand, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: Brian R. Harman, CAS
Re-recording Mixer: David Michael Torres
Television Non-Fiction, Variety or Music Series or Specials
Live from Lincoln Center: Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton
Re-Recording Mixer: Ken Hahn, CAS
Production Mixer/House Sound: Paul Bevan
CAS Technical Achievement Award
Production
Sound Devices SL-6
Post-Production
iZotope RX5-Advanced
CAS Student Recognition Award
Matt Yocum, Savannah College of Art & Design
Visit the Cinema Audio Society at cinemaaudiosociety.org.