That Tricky Category - The "Best Sound" Oscar, Explained

As if filling out an Oscar ballot wasn't challenging enough, 2021 has a ton of rule changes with regards to how the Academy will be voting. Most notably for us here at Dolby, the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories have been combined into one: Best Sound. 

Today Glenn sits down with Teri Dorman, Kevin Collier, and Scott Millan — the current Board of Governors of the Sound Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — to discuss the rule changes, the controversies these changes stirred up, and — perhaps most importantly — what criteria the Academy might use to vote on this new category. Complicating matters further is the fact that most audiences will be experiencing these films at home, not in a cinema with a state-of-the-art sound system. Whether you're an Oscar voter or an Oscar viewer who wants to do well in your annual office pool, this episode should make filling out your ballot just a little bit easier.

"I'd like to think that what we do has been treated in a way that the intent will come across, whether you're listening on a home system that's average or whether you're listening to it in the cinema. And I realize this is very 'pie-in-the-sky,' but I think there is an element that potentially can transcend what it's being played on and hopefully that'll come through. It's something that we all think about and probably toss and turn at night a little bit over because this is going to be a different year." — Kevin Collier, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Board of Governors, Sound Branch