Best Documentary (Feature)

• Icarus

Best Documentary (Short)

• Heroin(e)

Best Film Editing

• Baby Driver (Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos)

Best Makeup/Hair

• Darkest Hour (Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick)

Best Music (Original Score)

• Dunkirk (Hans Zimmer)

Best Original Song

• “Remember Me” (Coco) Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

Best Production Design

• Dunkirk (Nathan Crowley, Production Design; Gary Fettis, Set Decoration)

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• Call Me By Your Name (Screenplay by James Ivory)

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

• Lady Bird (Written by Greta Gerwig)

Best Directing

• Get Out (Jordan Peele)

Best Costume Design

• Shape of Water (Luis Sequeira)

Best Cinematography

• Blade Runner 2049 (Roger A. Deakins)

Best Animated Feature Film

• Coco

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• Willem DaFoe in The Florida Project

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Allison Janney in I, Tonya

Best Picture

• Call Me by Your Name

Now for Best Picture, we found ourselves in a three-way tie between Call Me by Your Name, Get Out, and Lady Bird. Upon a tiebreaker, we found ourselves in another three-way tie. We were, however, able to choose our Best Picture winner and we decided on; Call Me by Your Name. If that does not win, but one of our other ties does win, we’ll call that a success on our part.

We’d like to congratulation all nominees this evening, and we eagerly await the results of this year’s Academy Awards.

Please read other articles written by District and The Manor on the 2018 Academy Awards.

The post SCAD Radio Oscar Predictions appeared first on SCAD Radio.

Please note: I won’t be discussing Michael Giacchino’s score for War for the Planet of the Apes, Mark Mothersbaugh’s score for Thor: Ragnarok, or Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch’s work on Blade Runner 2049, as all three are high-profile films that have received a lot of attention. That being said, all three scores are excellent and are well worth a listen. Another final note: this article will strictly discuss scores (originally composed music) and not soundtracks. Sorry, Baby Driver.

Good Time – Oneohtrix Point Never

The conversation for the best film scores of 2017 starts and ends with Oneohtrix Point Never’s work on the Safdie Brothers’ grimy urban thriller Good Time. Daniel Lopatin (who uses OPN as his stage name) has been producing some of the most compelling electronic music of the last few years. The duo was smart to attempt to add a new chapter to film’s long catalog of excellent, electronic musician-composed scores, and they picked a perfect collaborator in Lopatin. His score is feverish, pulsating and wild. In other words, it’s exactly like Good Time. The Safdie Brothers (along with editor Ronald Bronstein) boldly place the score right at the forefront and let it dictate the pace of several key sequences. In a wonderful touch, it even echoes its lead character, Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson). Upon recruiting OPN, the Safdie’s reportedly wanted him to make a “sloppy prog” album. This relentless drive combined with frenetic, wailing synths and guitars perfectly encapsulates Connie’s recklessness and determination. I’ve been playing it non-stop. As a nice bonus, Iggy Pop provides vocals on the mournful ballad “The Pure and the Damned,” which, despite being musically at odds with the entire rest of the score, fits totally at home here. There should be a law against listening to this score while driving. It’s that exhilarating.

Standout Track: “Leaving the Park”

Columbus – Hammock

My favorite film of 2017 was Columbus – a beautifully understated and emotionally resonant film by first-time director Kogonada. Hammock’s wonderful score manages the tricky balance of not overwhelming the hushed tone of the film, while also accentuating the emotions present in many of the key scenes. Kogonada has openly cited Japanese maestro Yasujiro Ozu as an influence on the film’s pace, tone, and visual style, and Hammock’s score fulfills the same role as the music in Ozu’s films do. It evokes a time and place, and at once sounds instantly nostalgic and wholly unfamiliar.

Standout Track: “Eliel”

Raw – Jim Williams

Another one of my favorite films of last year was Julia Ducournau’s Raw, a massively disturbing and wholly unforgettable mashup of cannibal film and coming-of-age drama. In keeping with the film, the score shifts wildly between playfulness and outright terror, while never letting go of the underlying tension. The main theme is one for the ages, and more than lives up to the themes it’s undeniably going to be compared to (A Clockwork Orange, Suspiria). The first time it’s played is one of the most genius marriages of picture and sound I’ve seen in quite some time.

Standout Track: Finger Scene

Super Dark Times – Ben Frost

Super Dark Times – written, directed, photographed and produced by SCAD graduates – resists taking the easy road at every turn. There are no pop songs to telegraph its mid-90’s setting and very few pop culture references. The score is emblematic of the film’s bold approach. It almost appears to blend its sound design to its darkly disturbing score, which creates the sensation that this mid-winter New York town is perched on the edge of the world. It evokes both the adolescent innocence of pre-Columbine America and the catastrophic violence that factors heavily into the film’s plot. Frost’s work creates a mood so oppressive and unnerving that just writing about it makes me feel like I should sit by a fire.

Standout Track: I Have No Maximum Velocity

A Ghost Story – Daniel Hart

A Ghost Story’s soundtrack sounds as immense as it’s lofty thematic ambitions, building a deep wall of emotion behind the facade its deceptively simple plot. Hart’s score allows the film to feel profound yet not ponderous. Its influences are tricky to pin down – it appears to brush up against post-rock, classical music and folk-rock that sounds ripped straight from the American heartland. Hart manages an awe-inspiring blend of vastness and intimacy that is all too rare. There’s also another factor to consider – much of the film is dialogue-free. Luckily, Hart’s music doesn’t just cover for the lack of dialogue. It finds meaning in the silence.

Standout Track: Thesaurus Tuus

Mudbound – Tamar-kali

Most good film scores are inseparable from the mood of the film – they either support the images on screen or they contrast them to great effect. Sometimes these connections are tangential, and other times they’re literal. Tamar-kali’s Mudbound score is certainly an example of the latter. I had the great privilege to interview Tamar-kali at the Savannah Film Festival, and she told me that director Dee Rees wanted the score to evoke the feeling of being “dragged through mud.” The visual metaphor of African-Americans historically being trampled underfoot echoes throughout the entire film and is omnipresent in Tamar-kali’s churning, uncompromising score. By refusing to sanitize any of the horrifying images on screen, the score sounds as if it’s been unearthed from the Mississippi Delta itself. It’s both period-accurate and wholly modern – which suggests that the societal issues the Jackson family faces in Mudbound are more than relevant today. Spoiler alert: they are.

Standout Track: Intro / Mudbound Theme

The post Most Underappreciated Film Scores of 2017 appeared first on SCAD Radio.

If you don’t know the nominees, we’ve taken some time to jot down the names and films which will be up for the award on March 4th, 2018, plus our opinions on how the music turned out.

Dunkirk — Hans Zimmer

It’s Hans Zimmer. I don’t know what to say other than he does his job well, but it gets lost inside Nolan’s work. You barely notice it, but when you listen to it, you wonder why you couldn’t hear it during the film.

Phantom Thread — Jonny Greenwood

This is a good shot of classical music for anyone who is in desperate need of it. Part of me is afraid that this score, though great, will win the Oscar even though it’s exactly what it is and nothing more. Nice classical music.

The Shape of Water — Alexandre Desplat

It’s magical. Flat-out magical. I can’t praise this album enough because it works for a fantasy for a modern time film like the director Guillermo Del Toro says it is. It’s charming, dark, and whimsical when it needs to be. I honestly am pulling for this score, but I’ll understand if it doesn’t win.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi — John Williams

Nothing but Star Wars. I think that this is a strong soundtrack, but John Williams doesn’t need another Oscar.  I feel like it’s a bit of a retread for the franchise, but there are one or two good editions. I feel that he did a much better job with Force Awakens, and all The Last Jedi did was add onto the themes he made years ago.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — Carter Burwell

I was deeply impressed with this soundtrack, as I feel that it encapsulates everything that a modern-age Western should have in a soundtrack. It’s deep and melancholic, but it adds just enough of other genres to give it a well-rounded sound. It’s easy to add a few well-known country and rock songs to a soundtrack and call it quits, but Burwell knows exactly what he’s doing. Those additions act more as the cherry on the cake rather than needless filling.

We congratulate all of the nominees for score, and we anxiously await the 90th Academy Awards.

To hear about the movies themselves, hop on over to District!

The post Oscar Nominees for Best Score appeared first on SCAD Radio.