The Fifties 2014: Editing and Visual Effects

FILM EDITING

JOE'S PICKS:

Boyhood (Sandra Adair): The ambition of the project puts a spotlight on the editing process, but making three hours feel so tantalizingly quick is more than just a gimmick.

Edge of Tomorrow (James Herbert): The editing is kind of front and center on this one too, and the whole enterprise would pretty much crash and burn without a sure hand. A few extra thumbs up for the comedy elements in the middle section, almost entirely editing-based.

Hide Your Smiling Faces (Daniel Patrick Carbone): Letting this story unfold at its own pace, with the vagaries and languidness of a childhood summer vacation.

Stranger by the Lake (Jean-Christophe Hym): Suspense born of long- and close-shots, cut together with dreamy precision.

Under the Skin (Paul Watts): Making juuuust enough sense of the plot without spelling it out for the audience. Working in tandem with Johansson to portion out her increasing empathy as deliberately as possible.

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The Fifties for 2012: Editing and Sound

Look, Ma, twice in two days!



Best Film Editing
Crockett Doob and Affonso Gonçalves for Beasts of the Southern Wild, for making Hushpuppy's world such a revolving, crystalline dream, but also allowing its mess, its detours, its slow patches and hesitations;

John Gilroy for The Bourne Legacy, for the precision cutting and rhythmic control over each scene, in the holding patterns and discourses as well as the chases and shoot-outs;

"Mary Ann Bernard" for Magic Mike, not just for squeezing the comedy, the drama, the musical, the sex show, and the essay into one film but for weaving them so subtly together;

Gerardo Naranjo for Miss Bala, for the impeccable construction of believably ground-level suspense, privileging Laura's POV but adding tension by nudging us just beyond it; and

Veronika Jenet for The Snowtown Murders, for clarity and economy, condensing complex sequences, slipping characters into and out of the film, dilating horror or paralysis as needed.

Honorable mentions in alphabetical order by film title to Joel Negron for 21 Jump Street, Andrew Hafitz for Damsels in Distress, Leslie Jones and Peter McNulty for The Master, Wolfgang Widerhofer for Michael, Andrew Weisblum for Moonrise Kingdom, and Olivier Bugge Coutté and Gisle Tveito for Oslo, August 31st.




Best Sound (Mixing and Editing)
Steve Boeddeker, Bob Edwards, John D. Matthews, et al., for Beasts of the Southern Wild, for keeping up with and blending the range of tones in Hushpuppy's life and in bayou life, working across exaggerated and realist registers;

Christopher Eakins, Robert Jackson, et al., for Lawless, for conjuring a sense of place as much through musical idioms as through foley work, giving the world depth and making the violence resonate;

Salvador Félix, Pablo Lach, et al., for Miss Bala, since every year yields its own champion for sheer ballistic impact, erupting through the quiets, excitements, and low-level dins of Mexico; 

Frank Lipson, et al., for The Snowtown Murders, for again proving Australia a world champ in this craft, blurring lines between music and other elements, putting odd noises to indelible use; and

Gábor ifj. Erhélyi, et al., for The Turin Horse, for unforgettably synthesizing the constant wind, the quotidian noises, the rural and nocturnal quiets, and that warped-wood Mihály Vig score.

Honorable mentions aren't so numerous at this point in the year, but they start with Tim Barker, Gernot Fuhrmann, et al., who weave strands of memory, radio fragments, pub music, period textures, and wartime flashbacks so sinuously in The Deep Blue Sea. Craig Henighan, et al., gave Moonrise Kingdom some memorable sonic moments and motifs, and Ann Scibelli, Simon Hayes, Victor Ray Ennis, Mark P. Stoeckinger, et al., built a textured and evolving envelope of audio around Prometheus. Way off the grid of "Best Sound" types of movies, Jafar Panahi uses sound ingeniously to convey what he cannot or should not show in This Is Not a Film.