UK’s Association Of Motion Picture Sound Criticizes Decision To Not Broadcast Best Sound Oscar Live

deadline.com:

The Association Of Motion Picture Sound, the UK body representing more than 550 professionals in the fields of film, TV and game sound, has responded to AMPAS’s decision to remove the Best Sound Oscar from its live broadcast.On Tuesday, it was confirmed that eight of the 23 Oscar categories would be presented before the live show on March 27, and then later rolled into the telecast.Among them is Best Sound, which was created last year by merging the Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing prizes together.Andrew Wilson, chair of the Association, released a statement today criticizing the move.“Filmmakers in all categories contribute to the impact of any film, so the decision by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to move some categories outside the main event is deeply disappointing,” Wilson said. “It sends out a signal that these categories are deemed somehow less important which can only serve to create division in the filmmaking community.

All the affected categories will suffer from this insensitive devaluing of their contribution.”“At a time when the AMPS/CAS/MPSE joint credit initiative is starting to gain momentum this undermines the good work done to acknowledge the significant contribution our skilled and creative sound teams continue to make to cinema,” he continued.“We feel that sound, film editing, production design or any of the other five categories devalued in this way make no less a contribution than those that are unaffected and we ask The Academy to reconsider this poorly-judged decision.”The statement is part of a wide backlash AMPAS has faced this week since the announcement, read more about that here.New and returning series on broadcast, cable and streamingSeries that made it or didn’t