The Oscars are now a week away from the annual awards show announcing the top film honors, but last night, two important guilds and another strong Oscar precursor announced their awards as the editors and audio engineers gave us some idea of the way three technical categories may swing, while the adapted screenplay category frontrunner got a little more support.
First off, the ACE Eddies, given out by the American Cinema Editors for film editing awarded Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist in the comedy/musical category and Alexander Payne’s The Descendants in the dramatic category, mirroring the split of the Golden Globes last month. Both films are nominated in the Oscar’s film editing category and an ACE Eddie confirms these are the two movies to beat for Best Picture. Gore Verbinski’s Rango was awarded for its editing in the animated category.
Next, the USC Scripter award which honors films based on novels by paying tribute to both source material and adaptation gave their annual award to Payne’s The Descendants, confirming its lead in the Oscar Adapted Screenplay category.
Lastly, the Cinema Audio Society made up of film sound engineers and mixers gave their top honor in the motion picture category to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which was nominated in both Oscar sound categories, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, pointing to a win in at least one if not both categories.
