The Bake-Off
Why Doesn't the Academy Take What We Do Seriously Yet?
by Mark Mangini
You've all heard of it. Some of you have attended it. Most of us dread it. It's the loudest night of the year. It's seventy minutes of ear burn for the hearing impaired.It's louder than real bullets, more powerful than actual explosions, able to burst small ear drums with a single sound. Look, up in the sky. It's absurd, it's inane, no it's: the Bake-off.
How the Academy Sound Branch nominates pictures or Best Sound Effects Editing
Just what is the Bake-off? It is a 'pre-nomination' screening procedure administered by the sound branch of the Motion Picture Academy to aid its members in determining which film(s) shall be (if any) nominated for the 'Best Sound Effects Editing' Academy award. Whereas most branches vote directly for the five nominated films in any given category, the sound branch is required to 'pre-nominate' seven films via a preliminary ballot.
Only two crafts are pre-screened
As the sound effects editing award is not considered to be a regular award the Academy has added the Bake-off to determine what, if any, films are truly deserving. ( N.B. Oddly enough, in this day and age of highly sophisticated visual and aural films, the sound editing award and the visual effects award are the only crafts pre-screened via a Bake-off process before any film can be nominated, as if to say 'maybe there wasn't anything really notable this year so we just might not give an award at all'.) Can you imagine suggesting this concept to anyone else, such as the members of, oh let's pick an easy target, the acting branch?
To get to the Bake-off, a 'pre-nomination' ballot and reminder list of eligible films are sent to all sound effects editor members of the AMPAS sound branch. From this list the solicited members vote for what they consider to be the five most noteworthy sound effects edited works of the year. Those ballots are sent to Price Waterhouse. The seven films receiving the highest vote-count are asked to participate in the Bake-off.
The producer and supervising sound editor (s), no more than two are allowed, of each of the seven films are notified of their selection and asked to prepare a ten minute representative sample of the significant sound editing work in their film. Excerpts for the ten minute clip must be made from the release version of the film and may only be shown in an audio format that the film was released in. (This rules out double system playback except in the case of a film released in the DTS digital format.) No sound track modifications are allowed.
Only the credited supervising sound editor (or, in special cases, two) may be nominated. The sound branch has very specific rules about screen credits with regards to eligibility for this award and who may be nominated. Please check your local listings.
A second ballot is then handed out at the beginning of the evening. The seven ten-minute clips are then run, in random order. A representative of the film (usually the supervisor but, in rare cases, producers have spoken) is allowed to speak briefly about his or her film before it is run. Voting consists of scoring each film on a whole point scale between 6 and 10, 10 being the highest. The ballots are returned to the Price Waterhouse representatives at the end of the evening and the nominees (if any) are announced the same day as the rest of the Oscar nominations.
To be nominated a film must achieve higher than an 8.0 average score from this ballot. If only one film achieves higher than an 8.0, a recommendation is made to the Academy's Board of Governors that an award should be given (this is not a guarantee of winning). If the Board of Governors agrees with this recommendation, the award is given during the Scientific and Technical awards ceremony that usually precedes the Oscar telecast. If two or more films receive higher than an 8.0 average score they are then automatically put on the final ballot and voted on by the entire membership of the Academy with the award being given on national television. A maximum of three films may be nominated for the 'Best Sound Effects Editing' award.
The Bake-off is:
Loud!!!!! -- Flashy -- Inspiring -- Loud!!!! -- Educational -- Entertaining -- Social -- Open to the public -- Loud!!!!
The Bake-off is not:
Representative -- Contemplative -- Fair -- Quiet.
This years Bake-off had it's share of great moments (and some low ones as well.) The seven films in attendance were 'Star Trek - First Contact', 'The Rock', 'Independence Day', 'Daylight', 'Twister', 'Eraser', and 'The Ghost and the Darkness'. All seven films showed ingenuity, style, craft, and excellence. It was also the first time in years where we had a nice mix of genres to choose from, a welcome change from the usual seventy minutes of ear splitting clangor.
The Bake-off has its share of problems, least of which is getting the right films there to begin with. As a voting member, if you are honest, you vote only for the pictures you have seen and heard. This generally means that popular and successful films (read: big box office or high attendance) are more likely to be pre-nominated. This does not mean that the seven best sounding films will get pre-nominated or sent to the Bake-off. This dilemma outlines, in general, the whole problem with the Academy Awards voting procedures and its nominating process.
I must say, it is a difficult craft to analyze. The most blatant and obvious work always seems to be on display. For that reason that I usually don't vote in categories that I don't understand, like Best Costuming or Best Art Direction. I don't know anything about these crafts so my vote is apt to lean towards the films that hit me over the head. I think our craft suffers from the same malaise. Just as the costumers probably cringe every time the period English costume dramas sweep their nominations, so should we cringe when our plate is full of action/fantasy gun-battle car chase films. But so what!!! It's just a pretty statue. It's not world hunger.
Here are a few admonitions and suggestions to my fellow voting members and future nominees:
- Louder is not better.
- Explosions are boring.
- Gunshots are boring.
- Your peers have been doing this as long or longer than you have and, as such, know how to recognize subtle, tasty, thought provoking work under 96 SPL. So put some of it in your damn Bake-off reels!!! I promise you, you will be rewarded for it.
- Sub woofer rumble does not a profound reel make.
- Most of us go into ear bleed by the fourth or fifth clip. Should you be so unlucky as to be placed at the back end of the running order for the evening, your sonic restraint will be even more welcome and commensurately rewarded.
- If you have trouble finding five films to 'pre-nominate,' ask friends whose sound opinions/ears you respect. Make a point to see their recommendations. Compare your notes with your friends of films you have seen and discuss why you thought something was good. You may learn interesting inside information (like a film I know of whose Academy Award-winning sound editor was actually fired off the project he won for, and its notable sound work was done by the director and his wife in their apartment at the eleventh hour).
- Do not vote for a film if you have not seen it.
- Do not vote for a film because it was 'a big action picture'
- Do not vote for a film because 'the guy who did it always does great work'.
- Do not vote for a film because it was hard work or was made under difficult or exotic circumstances. The work must be on the screen. Great sound editing is about great ideas coupled with first rate execution. One can throw all the money and staff in the world at a sound job, or have bragging rights about cutting more tracks than anyone else, or have cut the film by oneself in a garage, or recorded every sound from scratch, or recorded it digitally, or any one of a number of store-bought solutions, but if you can't see (or hear) the sound editors intentions and creativity on the screen, none of the rest matters.
Congratulations and good luck to this Year's nominees for the 'Best Sound Effects Editing' award:
'Daylight'
Richard Anderson & Dave Whittaker'The Ghost And The Darkness'
Bruce Stambler'Eraser'
Allan Murray & Bub Asman
