Once again, the Oscar Awards bring us a controversial surprise. Not only have the rules of the game been drastically changed. In the past, the award covered only those films released in theaters for at least one week in Los Angeles — one week during the year in question. Well, it has changed now. Moreover, this time, the most radical controversy relates to the sound industry. For many people, the difference between best sound editing and best sound mixing is confusing, and, for a long time, it was a constant source of questions. “Aren’t they the same thing?” people often ask. The short answer is, of course, no, and the reason for having two categories in the past had to do with the fact that these two activities are as different as writing a movie script and directing a movie. The two activities entail different efforts and accomplishments, to the point that people who work in sound editing do not necessarily work as sound mixers.

Let’s be clear. When working on the sound of any production, we talk about two major moments. The first one is about recording the sound during the shooting of the film with microphones placed near the actors and all the sound sources that make up the environment. Capturing those sounds effectively and cleanly is a precision job that requires knowledge, patience, and instinct. Then, we have the sound editing, and this second moment consists of editing the raw material to direct it and align it synergistically with the rest of the aspects of the work, such as the script, the art direction, or the photography itself. It is a design work, which demands a high degree of intuition and artistic sensitivity. Subsequently, the process that follows consists of mixing all the sound elements so that they all work like the mechanisms of a great clock, each one in its place, fulfilling a specific function, harmoniously. It is what a company like Enhanced Media is focused on.

A single person, or even a single work team, should not be in charge of all these processes in a super-production. They are simply different departments, with different purposes, whose products are achieved and developed through different tools and knowledge. Each involves a myriad of decisions, and, as technology advances, they can be refined and become more complex.

However, for the vast majority of people, those who work in the sound industry are simply those who are locked in a studio and make the sound of the film excellent, ignoring all the complexity enclosing this world. That is the controversy. After a long process of analysis, a subcommittee of the sound branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences favors the idea of consolidating the guild combined in a single category award for Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. The report’s findings were released by the governors of the Academy’s sound branch.

So, the two categories of the sound awards have been unified into one as of this year, with the 93rd edition of the Oscar Awards. From now on, we will only talk about the category of the best sound, “achievement in sound.” For this reason, the categories of the awards will be twenty-three from now on. As they have declared on the Oscars official website, The two Sound categories, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing have been combined into one award for best achievement in Sound that emphasizes the team effort. The number of Oscar® statuettes remains the same; up to six statuettes may be awarded. Eligible recipients may include one production sound mixer, two supervising sound editors, and three re-recording mixers.

The change was requested by the sound professionals themselves. The core of the argument for making such a decision was that in the last editions both awards had gone to the same films. Simply as that. In this year’s awards, the films nominated for best sound were Greyhound, Mank, News of the World, Soul, and Sound of Metal. The question here is why exactly?

There used to be two sound categories for a quite clear reason. The original division had originated in the sixties — when there was a Best Sound Effects category, which was later renamed Best Sound Effects Editing, and, finally, since the year 2000, settled as Best Sound Editing. In essence, it highlighted the work of collecting, recording, and capturing sound sources and audio effects for a film. The work of editing, manipulating, and arrangement of sound in the final cut of the film is what was awarded in the category of Best Sound Mixing, heir to the one created in the thirties, in the third edition of the awards. As of this year, it once again integrates all the sound work in the making of a film.

With the elimination of the previous double category, a great confusion for many people disappears, but, equally, they have eliminated the recognition for the hard work of different people who dedicate a lot of time and effort to improve the sound of the movies and series we see.