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Edition: U.S. Article Save Email Print Reprints Most Popular Most Shared Evan Lysacek ends Yevgeny Plushenko's Olympic reign 2:40am EST Lady Gaga tops Cowell's "Idol" mentor wish list 18 Feb 2010 Greek MPs lash out at Germany over debt crisis 18 Feb 2010 FOREX-Dollar at 8-mth high, boosted by discount rate rise 18 Feb 2010 Bad news for record lottery "winner" 16 Feb 2010 For Apple suppliers, loose lips can sink contracts 17 Feb 2010 Cleveland deemed most miserable city in USA 18 Feb 2010 China's "ant tribe" poses policy challenge for Beijing 17 Feb 2010 Evan Lysacek ends Yevgeny Plushenko's Olympic reign 2:40am EST Ohno again cashes in on Korean misfortune 14 Feb 2010 "Avatar" faces tough rivals for tech Oscars Debra Kaufman Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:00am EST Related News Five simple rules for winning an Oscar nomination 1:33am EST A sound policy for "The Hurt Locker" Thu, Feb 18 2010 Oscar nominees revel in newfound glory Wed, Feb 17 2010 "Hangover," "Up" "Locker" top film editing honors Mon, Feb 15 2010 "Avatar," "Hurt Locker" square off at Oscars Wed, Feb 3 2010 James Cameron, nominee for best director for ''Avatar'', arrives at the nominees luncheon for the 82nd annual Academy Awards in Beverly Hills, California February 15, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - To nobody's surprise, "Avatar" dominates the tech race at this year's Oscars. Entertainment | Film "When 'Avatar' is out there, it's the 800-pound gorilla in the room," says Visual Effects Society chair and VFX supervisor Jeff Okun. "Every film gets judged next to that." "Avatar" figures in four of the main craft categories: visual effects, film editing, sound editing and sound mixing. (James Cameron's opus scored nine nominations overall, tying for the lead with "The Hurt Locker.") In film editing, it faces four of the other best picture nominees: "District 9," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds" and "Precious," and in this category the final decision can go to any of them. Tentpole films like "The Bourne Ultimatum" (which won in 2008) and "The Aviator" (winner in 2005) often take home the gold, but smaller indie films such as "Crash" (winner in 2006) and last year's "Slumdog Millionaire" that have captured the zeitgeist have also won the Oscar. "Sometimes people are looking at it for craft and sometimes they're looking for an emotional response," notes editor Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino's longtime colleague and a previous nominee for "Pulp Fiction." "Editing is multileveled, which is why (the nominations) are all over the map." Each film in this category, she says, is "amazingly edited. They are all really different, and it proves the point that editing has to be different, to go after character, tension, excitement." Editor and first-time nominee Joe Klotz ("Precious") agrees. "It's a pretty diverse field," he says. "Sometimes a film with multiple story lines and convoluted connections can pick up a win, as 'Crash' did. Sometimes it's the style: 'Slumdog Millionaire' upped the ante with a style of cutting that worked for that story." Nowhere does "Avatar" loom larger than in the visual effects category, where it goes up against "District 9" and "Star Trek." According to Okun, the trend with the Academy "is to look for outstanding work that pushes the envelope," and "Avatar," with its wealth of digital characters and virtual worlds, more than fits the bill. Peter Jackson's effects house, WETA Digital, was behind both "Avatar" and "District 9," and "Avatar" nominee Joe Letteri has won all three of his Academy Awards working on films for the company. Still, he says, "Avatar" is the culmination of all his previous work. "'Lord of the Rings' created a fantasy world people hadn't seen before," he says. "With 'King Kong' we focused on a lead character that could carry scenes on his own, with more virtual world around him. That's where we started the discussion with Jim (Cameron)." WETA Digital's Oscar track record goes four-for-four on the three "Rings" films and "Kong." But, if it seems likely that Letteri (nominated with Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andy Jones) will nab his fourth award this year, don't forget that "Star Trek" was admired by experts for its fresh and vigorous reinvention of the franchise -- and that "District 9" (directed by a VFX artist, Neill Blomkamp) does exemplar work on a shoestring budget. And that may register. "The second thing the Academy likes to reward is if someone does something equal to the best out there, with a lot of innovation but on a ridiculously small budget," Okun argues. No surprise that the nominations for sound editing and sound mixing essentially mirror one another; they usually do. Both categories have nominations for "Avatar," "The Hurt Locker," "Inglourious Basterds" and "Star Trek." Pixar's animated "Up" rounds out the sound editing category, while "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" completes the sound mixing nominees. "It's hard to have one without the other," says three-time Oscar-winning sound mixer Michael Minkler, who picked up his 11th nomination for "Basterds." "Good material and a good mix usually go hand-in-hand." But not always, says Mark Stoeckinger (who did sound editing on "Star Trek" with Alan Rankin). "You can have a beautiful mix and the content can be not that interesting or unique," he says. "And if you have interesting content put together in a unique way and the mix can't articulate that, the mix falls short. More than likely, however, you need both of them working in harmony." Sound editor/mixer Paul N.J. Ottosson embodies that. He's nominated for "Locker," both in the sound editing category and with Ray Beckett for sound mixing. "You're looking for totality," Beckett says. "And that comes from all the elements. You need to have one to have the other." The mirroring effect for the sound categories, however, does not necessarily extend to winners: Last year, "The Dark Knight" picked up the sound editing win, while "Slumdog Millionaire" earned sound mixing, a split that also happened in 2007. While musicals or music-heavy films tend to be magnets for sound mixing votes, that's not the case this year: "Nine" and "Crazy Heart" failed to impress in the sound categories, though each was nominated elsewhere. The key to a win, Stoeckinger says, is a film where sound plays an important role in the storytelling. "Sound is often dismissed as a techy thing, like putting stucco on a house," he notes. "But it's tailored and crafted specifically for the film, and directors all care about it as much as they do every other element." He points out that "Star Trek" faced the challenge of incorporating classic, iconic sounds with fresh ones that rejuvenated the franchise. "J.J. (Abrams, director) likes to get involved in the details," he says. "He's really into samplers and sequencers and everything we have to make great sounds." "Hurt Locker" earned its nomination this year, in part, for its use of sound to help audiences share the lead character's point of view. "It's not an ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement, or overdubbing) mindset," Beckett says. "We were using documentary techniques on set, getting the live dialogue and local sounds as much as we could." That means, essentially, very little looping (voice overdubbing) was done -- as with "Basterds." "The real voices were done from production," Minkler notes. "Right from the beginning, (Tarantino) has to have good sound. He'll retake a shot for sound." Tarantino is also known for his attention to the specifics of sounds. "The gunshots are made up of hundreds of tracks," Minkler adds. "Audio is just as much a role player as his star." Entertainment Film More from Reuters Fed seeks to calm markets after discount rate rise WASHINGTON/MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve officials moved to calm speculation that a surprise rise in its emergency lending rate could bring forward broader policy tightening, saying borrowing costs in the economy would stay low. | Video Tiger Woods to make public apology | Video NY Democrats seek to avoid Massachusetts debacle U.S. department stores in fight for market share Evan Lysacek ends Yevgeny Plushenko's Olympic reign Toyota head prepares for Congress grilling on recalls | Video » More Top News China's "ant tribe" problem They live in dingy low-rises and can't afford the middle-class lifestyle they strive for. Will China's white collar "worker ants" revolt? Full Article Chinese housing dream slips away Housing boom spreads to poor center China Vancouver 2010: Norway soars, Vonn wrecks Norwegian biathlete Tora Berger captured her country's 100th Winter Olympic gold, while American Lindsey Vonn crashed and blew her chances of a second gold medal. Slideshow Lysacek edges Plushenko to gold Tooth Fairy may visit silver medalist Ligety predicts "nasty" men's super-G 2010 winter olympics © Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editions: Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom United States Reuters Contact Us Advertise With Us Help Journalism Handbook Archive Site Index Video Index Analyst Research Mobile Newsletters RSS Podcasts Widgets Your View Labs Thomson Reuters Copyright Disclaimer Privacy Professional Products Professional Products Support Financial Products About Thomson Reuters Careers Online Products Acquisitions Monthly Buyouts.com Buyouts Europe: Buyouts Conferences: Venture Capital Journal EVCJ International Financing Review International Securitisation Report Project Finance International PEhub.com PE Week Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

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