La La Land danced off with the Cinema Audio Society’s award for sound mixing in a live action feature film, during the 53rd annual CAS Awards, Saturday at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel.
The award — which went to re-recording mixers Andy Nelson and Ai-Ling Lee, production sound mixer Steven Morrow, scoring mixer Nicholai Baxter, ADR mixer David Betancourt and Foley mixer James Ashwill — topped a field of nominees that also included Doctor Strange, Hacksaw Ridge, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Sully.
La La Land’s Nelson, Lee and Morrow are also on the Oscar ballot for sound mixing, along with the sound mixing teams from CAS nominees Hacksaw Ridge and Rogue One, as well as Arrival and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
In six of the last 10 years, the winner of the CAS live action feature competition went on to win the Oscar. That has included two high profile musicals: Les Miserables (La La Land’s Nelson was also part of that team) in 2012 and Dreamgirls in 2006.
Also Saturday at the CAS Awards, Pixar’s Finding Dory was honored in the animated feature category and The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble in the new documentary feature category.
In the television competition, winners included Game of Thrones (one-hour series), Modern Family (half-hour series), The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (TV movie or minseries) and Grease Live! (TV nonfiction, variety or music series or specials).
Jon Faveau was presented the Filmmaker Award during the ceremony, saluted by Seth MacFarlane, The Jungle Book composer John Debney, and CAS president and Academy Award winner Mark Ulano. “It means so much to me that those who have worked with me didn’t veto this,” Favreau quipped, accepting the award. On a more serious note, he praised the "invisible art" that too often is "undervalued" and reflected on the “magical” moment “when you ultimately take the picture and marry it to sound.”
Production mixer John Pritchett — an Oscar nominee for Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha and Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition – received a standing ovation as he was presented the Career Achievement Award by his Road to Perdition collaborator Scott Millan and Jack Black–who joked that sound mixing is "a lot like plastic surgery, you only notice it when it's badly done."
CAS also presented a Student Recognition Award to Wenrui ‘Sam’ Fan of Chapman University.
Elayne Boosler hosted the ceremony.
The complete winners list follows:
