Oscars combines Sound Editing and Sound Mixing into one award for 2021

This year’s Oscars will see the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing awards combined into one golden statuette for the first time.

The new Oscar will be known as the Academy Award for Sound and has been changed to reflect the evolution of the professional film audio industry.

The Oscar for Sound was revealed this week when actor-producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas and singer, songwriter and actor Nick Jonas unveiled the Academy’s 2021 nominees. 

In the Sound category, the nominated films include Mank, Greyhound and the aptly named Sound of Metal. The Netflix-produced Mank, directed by David Fincher, picked up the most nominations this year with a grand total of 10 including best picture and best director.

Viewed by many as inevitable, the move to combine the two awards is a logical step as there is now a great deal of overlap between the two disciplines. In recent years, many of the awards of Best Editing and Best Mixing have gone to the same films across both categories. A single award is thought to better reflect the art of movie sound design in the digital age. 

The winners will be announced at the 93rd Oscars ceremony on Sunday 25 April, taking place at Union Station in LA and the Dolby Theatre and Highland Centre in Hollywood.

The 2021 nominees for Sound are:

GREYHOUND
Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders and David Wyman

MANK
Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance and Drew Kunin

NEWS OF THE WORLD
Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller and John Pritchett

SOUL
Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott and David Parker

SOUND OF METAL
Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, Carlos Cortés and Phillip Bladh