Paul Ottoson’s surprise double Oscar for sound editing and mixing on Sunday night for The Hurt Locker was dramatic. Rarely has anyone won two Oscars on the same show – the last time I remember it was to Walter Murch for picture and sound editing of The English Patient in 1996. Ottoson’s sound Oscar was shared with the production sound mixer Ray Beckett, who pulled the location duty in Jordan.

The Ottoson-Beckett pair also won the Cinema Audio Society’s award for best mixing of a feature film a week earlier. On that occasion Ottoson was very choked up compared to his Oscar performance, as the CAS is composed only of a few hundred people, all with significant mixing credits. As primarily a sound designer and editor in his previous over 100 film credits, he made the leap to mixing, and succeeded beyond his dreams with the recognition of his new peers in mixing.

The overall sound crew on this $11M budget picture was small: 15 people!  That’s tiny even by today’s shrunken crew sizes, down from years ago due to digital editing and automation. Assisting Ottoson as sound effects editor was Jamie Hardt, a 2000 graduate of USC Cinema where I teach. I remember him well, as he worked in the sound dept. as a technician as well as being a student. It is the biggest reward of teaching: seeing grads make it in the tough field of H’wood.

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